


Gerudo Slave

by Mmmph



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Bondage, F/M, Nudity, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:52:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 76,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10753305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mmmph/pseuds/Mmmph
Summary: After Link is caught up in a brutal desert sandstorm, he is left hopelessly treading the thin line of death until a rogue group of Gerudo women come upon him and save his life - only once his life has been saved, the desert girls aren't interested in letting him go... ever.





	1. Chapter 1

The sun had become his sworn enemy. It sat high overhead, a brazen, burning, beacon of gold in the afternoon sky; cooking the earth, simmering the horizon, baking the sands, and slowly but surely draining the life from him. Wherever he looked, whatever direction, he could see the heat lifting from the earth in distorted waves, as if the land had become one, giant, frying pan, and now his fate was to be slowly cooked upon it. On the western horizon, sand dunes rolled on for an eternity in undulating, golden, waves. To the East, a flat stretch of valley that ended in a rise of spired mountain peaks, a thousand meters separating him and them with nothing but sand and more sand along the way. Behind him, the sandstorm he'd fled from raged on, swallowing the world up in its wrath and fury and leaving only one option: forward, always forward.

Link mustered what strength he could to dig his heels into Epona's sides. His steed was carrying him along, but just barely, and he knew it wouldn't be long before his weight grew too much for her and he would have to dismount. He'd already shed every last saddle bag he'd brought, and not long after, the saddle itself. He'd also removed his tunic and his boots, stripping down to nothing but his breeches and a thin blanket he'd tied around his shoulders and hooded himself with to guard from the sun's might, but even with all that lost encumbrance, he still felt Epona's strength waning with every step forward she took.

_The shield,_ he thought, glancing back at the last two things he had left. _And the sword. They have to go. Have to_ _…_ _lose weight._ If he discarded them though… and came upon something dangerous… well, it was as good as discarding his life there and then. It was a decision, however, he'd have to make sooner rather than later. For Epona's sake if nothing else.

His hand fell to her mane and stroked up and down, letting the soft hair slip in and out of his fingers before moving aside to the shorter bristles sprouting from her shoulder blades and giving a squeeze. "It's going to be… alright, Epona," he croaked from a throat that had turned to sand paper, from lips that had dried and cracked over so many times they no longer felt like his own. He squinted into the horizon and watched the heat lift shimmering claws of death out of the sand in wavy lines. Overhead, vultures were swarming the skies: hungry, waiting. "It's… going to be… alright," he repeated, though whether telling his steed or himself then… he could not say.

If only the storm hadn't come. If only it hadn't gotten them all twisted around. If only he'd brought more water. If… if… if.

Slowly, he leaned forward and laid his head against Epona's mane. Her hair was so soft on his cheek, it felt like a pillow. The notion sent a faint smile tugging at the corners of his chapped lips. His eyelids felt as if they were made of steel. He needed to shut them to preserve energy. And it was hot; so hot. If only he could rest for a while. Rest and regain his strength. Some stronger part of him left alive inside the burning shell of his body told him 'No', but before long, his eyes fell shut anyway. Epona's steps were slow but steady, and each hoof that plotted into the sand send a gentle tremor up against his cheek and temple. The sensation was relaxing; the most relaxing thing in the world.

And not longer after, he drifted into a deep, deep, sleep.

* * *

At some point his eyes opened, though how much time had passed since they'd closed he did not know. He was laying in the sand. It was incredibly hot against his bare back. He groaned and pulled his legs up and it cooked the soles of his bare feet just the same as his back. He tried to rise to escape the heat, but their was no strength in him still and he had to resolve to simply lying there being cooked. He squinted and made his head turn. Epona was there, waiting at his side, chasing off the occasional vulture that strayed too close to him.

_Good girl,_ he thought, closed his eyes, and drifted again before long.

* * *

When his eyes opened next, he found a woman's face filling his vision. Link groaned and meekly lifted a hand to test the reality of the image, but a strong grip took him by the wrist and forced his hand back to his side.

"He's alive," the face said.

Link's vision blurred, focused, blurred again, and finally righted itself long enough for him to see the face clearly. It was most certainly a woman's. She had dark, auburn, hair tied into a what looked like a very tight ponytail behind her head and bronze skin that looked as golden and smooth as the sand itself. Her nose, mouth, and jaw were concealed beneath a veil of plum-colored silk, and when she talked, Link could see little tufts of air puffing the fabric up and down over the contours of her lips. Her ears were pointed, like his own, and a thin, silver, crown ran the length of her brow; a bright, yellow, gem adorned in its center. There was a choker around her neck of a similar plum color, but anything lower he could not muster the strength to lift his head and see.

" _Who_ _…_ _?_ " He croaked, and ran out of energy before he could say any more.

"Water," the woman commanded; her voice as austere as her hairdo.

A moment later a skin of water was coming dangling up over his lips and Link's entire body came alive with desperation. A new strength filled him just enough to purse his lips and lean in to accept the skin's nozzle. Water—wonderful, pure, fresh, delicious, crisp, water—filled his mouth, his throat, his belly. He drank as much as a man could without breathing, pulled away to catch his wind, and went back for more. Immediately he could feel his energy returning to him. He'd never thought in a millions years something as simple as a drink of water could so profoundly affect his entire body, his entire mind: he was coming back to life.

The woman pulled the canteen from his lips and let the last bit trickle over his brow and into his hair and down across his neck and chest. It felt absolutely wonderful, and Link lied back against the sand, taking in the immense pleasure of it as his strength came slowly galloping back to him.

"Epona," he said from a throat that felt in ten times better condition than it had a moment before. "My horse. My horses needs water, too."

"Your horse has been taken care of," the woman said; her silky mask puffing up and down as she talked. "We Gerudo treat our horses very well."

_Gerudo_ _…_ the name was familiar, but Link was still far too exhausted to stress his mind and think any further on it. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you. What is your name?"

"That sword and shield," the woman began, ignoring his question, her dark eyes boring down and sweeping him over from head-to-toe with what might have been scrutinization. "They are yours?"

Link swallowed. He nodded.

The woman returned the gesture. "And how do you feel?"

"Better," Link answered at once. "I was… going to die. You saved my life. I feel my strength returning to me by the second. Epona and I… we were caught in the sandstorm and-"

" _Aveil!_ " The woman shouted back over her shoulder, again ignoring Link entirely. "Bring me rope. Lots of it."

"Rope?" Link echoed, finding the woman's request utterly perplexing. "What do you need rope for?"

"Silence," she commanded in that same, strict, tone she'd used to fetch him water.

Suddenly, Link didn't feel comfortable lying on his back below the woman any longer. He made to get his elbows under him and stand and-

-the woman pinned him back against the sand with her elbow. He tried to move it aside, but her strength was deceptive for someone so ostensibly thin. His eyes moved to the copper arms poking out from the silk blouse wrapping her chest and found them toned and rippling with muscle as they worked to hold him in place. He tried again to lift himself, but she denied him by simply reapplying the pressure more firmly.

"What are you doing?" Link asked.

"Tying you up," she told him as a rope was passed her way from another bronze-skinned woman; this one in red silks instead of plum ones.

"Tying me..? Why?" Link asked. "You saved my life. I swear I won't try to-"

" _Silence,_ " she demanded, and her elbow dug deeper into his chest until it a bolt of pain coursed through it. "Telma! Fetch me a gag to silence him while I bind him."

And without further hesitation, the woman looped a coil of rope up, took his hands by the wrists, and slipped it over them. Link tried pulling away, but his strength had not returned yet in its entirety, and the woman worked quick and efficient anyway. Before he'd even had time to protest, his hands were bound before him so tightly he couldn't imagine freeing himself from the restraints without aid. With his hands secure, the woman eased up on his chest, took him by the back of the neck, and flipped him onto his stomach. The sand chewed at his bare abdomen with its scorching teeth, but Link only felt the ropes then; wrapping his arms down against his torso from his shoulders to his elbows to his waist. When she'd finished on his upper body, he felt her take hold of his feet and force them together to bind him at the ankles before moving up to fasten ropes above and below his knees.

All the while, Link was helpless but to lie there and allow the woman to have her way with him, twisting him one way to secure a rope one moment, maneuvering him another to cinch a tie the next, rolling him side to side to fasten her work and tuck away any loose ends the binds had left, and with every tug of every knot, Link felt his freedom vanishing further and further into nonexistence.

When it was finished, and Link was bound up so tightly he couldn't move a muscle besides slightly jerking his shoulders up and down and kicking his feet about a little below the ropes around his ankles, the woman sat him up and squared his shoulders before her own.

Link's strength was nearly all back to him then—not like it mattered in his prison of ropes—and with it came a fresh surge of anger. "Why are you doing this to me!?" He asked, a bit louder than he'd intended. "Why did you tie me up like this? I've done nothing to any of you! Do you hear me? I haven't-"

"The gag," the woman calmly requested, and a white knotted kerchief was placed in her open palm at once. She leaned forth and tucked the thick knot between Link's lips and teeth before he could voice another word of protest. She took up the loose ends and joined them around at the back of his head before tying them off, sealing the gag tightly in place.

" _Grmmph!_ " Link grunted, biting angrily down on the knot wedged between his teeth and jerking against the ropes that bound him. " _Mmf! Ermph!_ "

The woman's dark eyes held his own, and though he couldn't see her mouth beneath the silk mask tied over it, he could see the smile in her eyes. "This one has quite a bit of fight in him when he's not dying of thirst," she said, her tone growing playful and almost sardonic now that he was utterly helpless and no longer a threat. "A good catch."

From over her shoulder, more women came, _all_ women, and they were all dressed in similar attire too. Wavy, loose, blouses of varying colors draped around thin, but muscular, frames. Toned and copper or bronze abdomens below. Baggy pants fasted to their narrow waists with wide, black, belts. Some wore boots with pointed toes, others strappy silver sandals, others black flats. Each of the half-dozen or so also wore jeweled necklaces around their throats and rings around their fingers above wrist guards or bracelets. All of their lower faces were concealed under silk veils, but each had pointed ears and dark eyeliner rimming green or brown eyes and red hair in varying shades; some light as if kissed by sun; some dark as if bathed in shadow.

And most importantly: every one of the women was staring down at him with the same, hungry, playful, look etched into the features of what was visible of their faces.

"He's cute," one of them said.

The others looked to her briefly before tittering and snickering beneath their masks.

"Such fair skin too," another added, stepping a bit closer to prod at his side with the toe of her boot.

"And all tied up nice and tight," said a third as she knelt in the sand near his chest and cocked her head as she studied him.

"What should we do with this poor, helpless, young man whose fallen into our possession, Jolene?" Another asked.

The woman with the plum-colored mask who had bound him up in the first place was apparently named Jolene, as she was the woman who answered the question after a short laugh. "Get him on the back of a saddle, girls." Her eyes held his and a mischievous twinkle played within. "We're taking this one home."

With a gag in his mouth and enough ropes around his arms and legs to ensure he was powerless over his own limbs, there was not much Link could do to try and stop the women from taking him. They had an easy enough time hoisting his weight up to spread out evenly between them; one women cradling his feet under her arm, another wrapping her own arms around his chest, and two more on either of his sides to help balance him out. They giggled and conversed casually with one another as they lugged him to the back of a horse, worked him up over the saddle, and bound him down to the creature on his stomach so that he was essentially hogtied to the back of the horse.

One of the women stepped before him and lowered to his eyeline. There was a curiosity housed in her eyes as her hand reached for his cheek and stroked it with the back of her knuckles. Link grumbled and mumbled into his gag, shaking his head from side-to-side as if it could actually loosen the women's prodding fingers from his cheek. She snickered and stepped away after tormenting him for a few more seconds.

Not longer after he was tied down to the horse, the group of women's leader, Jolene, dug her sandaled foot into a stirrup and swung up onto the steed's saddle. Link chewed his gag and glared up at her the best he could as she turned back to him and said, "Your horse has been taken back to our village. We will treat her good… if you behave yourself. Don't make this trip harder on my own horse than it has to and she'll be well fed tonight. Understand?"

Link glowered.

"Make a noise if you understand me."

He held her eyes, hating her, wanting with everything in him to refuse her request, but the woman only stared and stared. " _Mmf!_ " Link grunted, finally succumbing to her demand, eager to be rid of her baleful eyes.

"Good," she said, and he could see that smile playing at her cheekbones again. " _We ride!_ " She shouted, and the pack of women spurred into action at her command, digging their heels into their steeds in unison, sending up a cloud of sand as they all moved forward as one.

* * *

The ride hogtied atop the back of the horse was bumpy, uncomfortable, and at times even painful, but at least it was brief. Link had to keep his eyes shut for most of the ride to keep the sand out of them, but it wasn't as if there much to see _except_ sand anyway, and when the horse's hooves finally slowed their beating against the earth and Link was able to pry his lids to cracks one more, he could see they had crested a large dune that sloped down into a valley, and at the valley's heart, a village of brown stones and tents and carpets and palm trees and a central fountain had been erected. " _Hya_!" Jolene shouted and spurred her horse forth to begin the long descent into the valley.

When the slope ended, and their traversal leveled out again, Link hoisted his head up to watch the approaching village grow out of the horizon. He saw, with a surge of incredulity, that even _more_ women were emerging from their erected tents and out of a three-story fortress of stone at the village's rear to come and greet the six returning to them. He could not be sure, but he thought there might be as many as two _dozen_ of the women in total. Their eyes landed quickly on him, narrowing shrewdly or blossoming with curiosity as he was hauled forward in his hogtie.

Jolene led their group through a narrow channel of tents and carpets to the foot of a stone oval at the village's center, where—somehow—a fountain was geysering over with clean and clear lapis water; its crowning ornament a sculpture of the sun intertwined with a crescent moon.

When the woman finally pulled up on the reins of her steed and brought them to a halt, Link craned his neck around, taking in as much of his surroundings as he could. He could see the golden dunes mounding up all around them on the horizon, as if the sand had swallowed them into the belly of the desert. Wherever the land had leveled out, however, the women had raised and architected varying structures. He spotted tents and huts and brick buildings of a dozen different sizes and shapes. There was a rack of spears and leather-banded shields in the center of a pair of flanking brown tents beside the fountain. Lined below the hulking stone fortress at the village's rear were the stables and pens, filled with the women's horses and a few pigs. Looming behind them, backdropped against the canvas of pale blue sky, the fortress watched over the scene like an ancient and vigilant protector. Link narrowed his eyes into the shadowed windows peeking out from the three stories, but spotted—thankfully-no one stirring within.

And sprouting up intermittently from the sands all around them were palm trees, but how exactly any life managed to grow so far out here in the barren lands of the desert, Link did not know.

"Well, look here! What have you brought us back this time, Jo?" A barefoot women in loose-fitting cream trousers asked, emerging from a nearby tent and sauntering up close to the horse with her eyes locked on Link's own. To his relief, she wore no mask like the riders, and so Link found an amused smile playing at her full lips. "A man?"

"Not just a man," Jolene explained with a hint of pride in her voice. She swung down from the horse and strolled up to lay her hand on Link's bare shoulder, as if displaying a prize. She hooked her index finger under her mask and slipped it down around her neck to reveal the same, cruelly delighted, smile and fix it upon him. "But the best kind of man."

The cream-trousered woman laughed. "The best kind of man? What kind of man is that, Jo?"

"Why, a bound and _gagged_ one!"

A smattering of laughter moved through the quickly-forming crowd around the horses. Link surveyed the small village clearing as it filled in more and more, and feared his original calculation of two dozen women might have been painfully undercounted. They were coming from _every_ where; every tent, every building, every lane, they were padding forth to stare at him with interest and curiosity.

A youthful woman with hazel eyes and big, silver, hoops hanging from her pointed ears peeked around her friend's shoulder and grinned. "My my my, look at this… what's his name?"

"We never got his name," one of the riders explained as she dismounted. "Jo tied that gag in his mouth so quickly, we barely heard him talk at all."

One of the village girls asked: "What are we going to do with him?"

Another questioned: "Can we keep him?"

"We're not going to let him escape like the others, right Jo?"

"Yeah. Not like those others. If we're going to keep him, we have to keep him locked up tight."

"Oh, yes, and guarded!"

"Right! Guarded! We'll keep him locked away and tied up tight and guarded at all times."

"I'll guard him."

"I want to guard him!"

"Me too!"

"I want to be his guard! It was my idea!"

"Would all of you just shut up!" Jolene snapped, and her commanding voice quieted the crowd down fast. "There's plenty of time to talk about what we're going to do with our captive, but for now, get him off the back of that horse. I figure we'll tie him up out here by the fountain so anyone who wants to get a look at him can." She faced Link and cupped his chin in her hand. "And you… you just keep quiet and behave yourself… or you _will_ be punished."

Link bit his gag and glared, but stayed silent and did not struggle. He had no idea what the woman was capable of, and didn't feel like pressing his luck.

A few of the women gathered together to remove him from the horse and return him to their hands. They cradled him between them like before and hauled him to a big, red and gold, carpet that had clearly been hand-knotted and was trimmed with silver fray and elaborate decorations around its perimeter splayed out before the fountain and shaded by a nearby palm tree. The girls lowered him onto his butt before sliding him back against a wooden stake, pinning him up against it, and pulling out lengths of rope to tie him up to it. They looped the ropes around and around until he was tightly bound to the stake, then they took him by the feet and pulled until his legs were stretched out as far as they could go and tethered his ankles to another stake. When they finished, he was seated on the carpet beneath the shade with his feet at one end and his body at the other. He looked from girl to girl, desperate to find _some_ one with a trace of sympathy for his situation.

"His eyes are so pretty," one of the girls hovering over him with her hands on her hips said.

"So blue," another added.

"Like the sky."

"Or the ocean."

"Alright, enough," Jolene interjected. "Leave him there for the others to come see while we eat. _And to the rest of you,_ " she shouted, cupping her hands around her mouth to carry her voice extra far around the village. " _No one is to remove the prisoner_ _'_ _s ropes or gag. He_ _'_ _s to remain still and silent_. _No exceptions._ " Her eyes narrowed shrewdly onto a few women in the crowd. " _And you cannot_ touch _him either._ "

A chorus of disappointed groans moved through the girls and Link's brow lifted almost involuntarily as they pressed the circle in a bit tighter on his position to voice complaint.

"No fair, Jo!"

"That's cruel!"

"You can't put him on display like that and expect us to behave ourselves!"

"Let us touch him a little, maybe."

"Yes, just a little!"

"Just a taste!"

Jolene rolled her eyes. She sneered and pursed her lips as her gaze shifted with annoyance back towards Link and looked him over. "You can… touch his arms or his calves or his feet. Nothing else. Do you hear me, girls? _Nothing_ else."

A smattering of agreement made its way through the crowd and Jolene looked satisfied enough with the response. She nodded, cast one last baleful flick of her eyes in Link's direction, and led her group of riders off towards a large tent erected at the base of the slope they'd ridden down.

The riders vanished into the shade of the tent, and the women began coming forth at once.

The first two practically toppled over one another as they dipped beneath the overhanging canvas and fell to their knees atop the carpet on either side of Link's outstretched legs. Link flicked his eyes cautiously between the two of them. He writhed a bit against the stake and frowned as they stared. The ropes were so tight around his body, though, he couldn't move more than an inch in any direction, and settled down at once to conserve energy.

" _Mrhmfr!_ " He mumbled into his gag, working his jaw around, trying desperately to get them to let him speak. " _Hrmf! Grm mmrmf mmrf mmmph!_ "

"He's the cutest one yet," one of the girls said as her eyes widened on his own. She had light hair and bright green eyes and like a few others, wore no mask on her face. She was biting at her lip as she looked Link over from his feet to his legs to his body and, finally, to stare at his face again.

"All men can be handsome or cute with gags in their mouths," the other girl—this one with a high bun of dark hair over her head and purple eyeshadow—added. "Just remember, he might be like our last slave we had for awhile. Sweet as honeyed wine when he couldn't talk, but when the gag came out… he was a terribly cruel thing."

_Slave._ Link couldn't help but focus on that word. It sent his stomach into knots and all of a sudden, his ropes felt tighter than they had the entire time he'd been wearing them.

"This one has soft and gentle eyes, though. Blue like water. And long lashes, like a woman's. Maybe… maybe he has the caring heart of a woman as well."

"Ha. Like Jo's heart?"

Both girls snickered.

"Well, no. Not like _that_."

A silence fell between them, and both girls took the opportunity to begin looking him over again. The one with the bright green eyes stuck her hand out tentatively for his shin and, after a moment's hesitation as her gaze flicked between his face and his legs, laid it gently just below his knee. Her fingers were surprisingly soft as they trickled up and down his leg twice before curving down around his ankle bone, and cupping one of his feet. She grinned and dragged her nails up along the arch of his bare foot.

" _Mmf!_ " Link grunted, involuntarily spasming a bit and shaking his head. He tried tucking his legs in, but the ropes kept him where he was.

The other girl tittered and reached for his arm. She took hold of him just around the shoulder and began stroking the bare flesh there down to the elbow. "Don't torture the poor thing, Kotake," she cooed. "At least… not yet. We don't want him to hate us before he loves us, after all."

The bright-eyed girl—Kotake, apparently—bit at her lip again and fixed her eyes wildly on Link's. "Do you like to be teased and tortured, mystery man?"

Link frowned. He debated not even bothering to reply to such an asinine question, but decided against it and simply shook his head.

"Ooooh, no?" Kotake cooed and raised her brow in what might have been mock sympathy. "That's too bad." She grinned. "For you."

"Oh, stop Kotake, you're scaring him," the other woman interjected.

"I don't have to stop, Gale!" Kotake whined. "Jo said! She said we could touch his arms and feet if we wanted, and I want to _tickle_ them!" She giggled. "I want to torturehim a little. It's been so _long_ since we've had a proper slave." Her eyes narrowed. "Especially one as cute as him…"

"Stop hogging him you two!" A voice protested from the crowed behind them. "You've had enough! Give the rest of us a chance to seem him up close!"

Kotake grimaced and rolled her eyes before fixing them on Link again. "Looks like your safe… for now, handsome." She winked, bit at her lip, and was practically dragged off by her friend when her hand reached for his face.

More women came and went in small groups then, but thankfully none were as… 'adventurous' as the Kotake woman. They all touched and groped and rubbed at his arms and legs and feet, but the most daring any of the others got was to 'accidentally' slip her fingers over his shoulder to briefly touch his bare chest. They talked to each other and sometimes to him as well, as if he weren't tightly gagged and unable to respond in the slightest. They laughed and joked and whispered suggestive things as their fingers trickled along his flesh, but after ten groupings of girls or so, his visitors finally began tapering off; though, all around the village, Link spotted the women's eyes persistently finding their way back to him, like moths drawn to flame. They stared hungrily and eagerly, but kept their distance as they chewed their bottom lips, and coiled strands of auburn hair around their copper fingertips, and burrowed little trenches in the sand underfoot with their toes, and slid their slender fingers along their bare midriffs.

All in all, the girls looked more ready to descend upon him then the vultures in the desert had.

As the sun was finally sinking below the western sand dunes, sending radiant red light clawing down into village between the crests and mounds, Jolene and her riders emerged from the big tent again and traipsed back through the camp to clutter around Link. The rest of the girls in the village kept their distance, but watched with profound interest stirring in their amorous eyes.

Jolene stood looming over him a moment with her hands planted atop her hips, as if to assert her dominance. Link stared right back at her, but tied down, half-naked, and gagged, he felt he was returning none of the power Jolene was exuding over him. She crouched, lowering herself to the line of his eyes. Her head cocked ever-so-slightly on its side as she spoke. "Listen to me, prisoner. We've captured and subdued you. For all intents and purposes… you belong to us. But the Gerudo are prideful, and we will not accept your enslavement so easily." She leaned a bit closer and unsheathed a dagger to dangle before his eyes. "I'm going to remove your binds now, and then you and I are going to spar. No weapons. If you can hold my shoulders to the sand for three heartbeats… you'll be free to go."

A chorus of jeers and groans erupted from the crowd of girls around them.

Jolene held a fist skywards to silence them. " _However_ … if you cannot… and you submit to me… you become the property of my girls and I. You become a Gerudo slave."

The women cheered and clapped then, their previous dissatisfaction forgotten in an instant.

Jolene smirked. "Well, what say you to that?"

She reached around the back of his head and untied his gag. When the knot came away from between his teeth, Link licked his lips and nodded his head. What other choice did he have then but to accept? "Alright… I'll spar."

Without another word, her dagger slipped between his wrists and sliced upwards, and just like that his hands were freed. She cut the ropes binding his torso before moving to his legs and slicing apart all the ropes there as well. Link reached back and took the stake he'd been bound to for support to lift himself to his feet. He could feel the girl's eyes, if possible, even _more_ intently watching him then. When his legs were under him and supporting his weight again (though not without a bit of wobble first since he hadn't used them in so long) Link felt better than he had since the sandstorm had gotten him all twisted around and sent him right into the waiting arms of these Gerudo women in the first place. He stretched his arms over his head, noting the way the girls' eyes hungrily swept across his bare chest and stomach as he did so, and stepped off the carpet and onto the sand.

Jolene was waiting there across a little clearing. The other Gerudo had circled in to form a sort of 'combat pit' between them, and stood staring with their arms folded across their chests, as if judging the battle… or, perhaps, just judging him. Jolene slipped out of her sandals and stepped barefoot into the center of the circle. She tightened her ponytail and smirked. "Come then, slave. Come and be dominated by your master."

Link retained his composure. "Rules?"

Jolene shook her head. "None. Simply pin me down… if you can."

Link squinted, wary of some trick or deceit.

The woman rolled her eyes. "Fine, slave," she said, lowering slowly to plant her knees in the sand. "I will kneel before you. There. Are you still so afraid? Am I still so imposing?"

A few of the girls on the perimeter chortled into their hands. Most simply watched with rapt attention.

"Come, slave. I'm on my knees," Jolene repeated.

Link took a cautious step forward-

-and Jolene scooped a handful of sand and flung it into his face. Link shielded his eyes and squeezed them shut to protect himself, but could not stop the attack entirely from working its way under his eyelids. He grunted and stepped back, swatting blindly before him, but the next attack did not come from his front: it came from his side. Jolene must have maneuvered around him right after the sand throw, for he felt her shoulder spear his ribs and drive him to the ground. He landed hard on his arm and received a mouthful of sand, but before he could so much as process that, Jolene's thin, sinewy, body was climbing up onto his chest to mount him. Link roared and bucked his hips, sending her weight off balance and providing him just enough time to squirm out from under one of her knees and take hold of her arm. He wrenched it back and heard her yelp, but her free hand took a fistful of his hair and forced his head down to the sand again. Link twisted to his side to escape her, but she moved to counter his momentum with her own, and the two came locked briefly in a battle of pure strength.

If, perhaps, Link hadn't nearly died of thirst not an hour earlier and hadn't then spent the following hour wrapped head to toe in ropes, he might have overpowered her. But, alas, that was not the case, and Jolene managed to work him back down to the sand, take hold of his arm at the wrist, and twist it back, flipping him onto his side and locking his torso down with her knee. She wrenched back his arm and Link shouted in pain. She laid her foot across his cheek and pressed his face down into the sands so that every breath Link drew, he received at least a partial lung-full of sand as well.

" _Submit, slave!_ " Jolene snapped.

" _Argh!_ " Link roared, trying desperately to break free from the hold.

The woman's foot pressed harder on his cheek, her heel driving painfully against his jawline. His arm was yanked back further and further. It was hard to breath with all the sand in his mouth, but it was also impossible not to with all the _pain_ being driven into his shoulder.

" _Submit!_ "

Link squeezed his eyes as hard as he could to fight through the pain. He was grounding his teeth so hard, he felt they might shatter. But he would not submit. _Could_ not. Instead, he let his entire body go limp just long enough for the woman to ease up a bit on her hold, then threw his weight to his side with everything in him. Jolene was caught unaware, and went tumbling down to the sand. Link wasted no time and scrambled up on top of her, ignoring the pain in his shoulder blade. He mounted her as she tried to rise and shoved her back to the sand, leaning forth to set all his weight over her.

The woman had anticipated the attack, however, and tucked her knees up between them before unfolding them again and jutting her feet up and out to either side of Link's head. Her legs back behind him, and she immediately pinched her thighs together, capturing Link's neck between them and squeezing.

Link felt his air choked off at once. His hands clawed for her inner thighs to pry them apart, but her leg muscles were strong and brawny, and Link needed the oxygen they were denying him badly.

He fell to his knees.

" _Submit!_ " The woman growled, her face as red as the setting sun behind her.

If Link could have spoken, he would have said 'No', but he could not talk, for he was falling again down that slippery slope of unconsciousness, and into a deep and dark chasm of blackness.


	2. Chapter 2

The crack of thunder stirred him from his sleep; the pale flash of lightning that followed pulled him from it entirely. Link lifted his head, and from the slitted cracks of his eyelids he saw an oblong strip of velvety night sky across a small room; a window, he ascertained upon further examination, cut from the massive brown stones that were toppled up on top of one another, building walls around him. He looked to his left, his right, and found nothing but more stone wrapping the perimeter. A low-hung ceiling stretched overhead, cracks in its belly, spiderwebs in its corners. At the far end of the room, the only other distinguishing features to join the strip of missing stone that acted as a window were a pair of ensconced torches flanking a solitary door of iron bars. Their warm light flickered and sent shadows dancing onto the walls as a cool night breeze swept in from the window.

The breeze carried through the room and reached Link, but when he made to wrap his arms to his body and shield himself from its cold kiss, he found he had no such control. His wrists were locked in irons and pulled up over his head, joined together and affixed to the ceiling with a short length of chain that provided little slack and kept him locked in place. Because of the height his captors had strung his wrists up, he had little balance on the balls and heels of his feet, and that was made an even more arduous task than it should've been, as his ankles were locked together in fetters as well. There was something heavy around his neck too, but he could not see what. And his mouth had been gagged again; the knot of a tick cloth bulged between his teeth and the cloth itself wrapped his lower face, pressing tightly into his cheeks and the back of his head. He bit down on it and pulled a bit at his manacled hands, but found only the defiant, oppressive, sound of the chains clinking against themselves in answer.

Before he even had time to ruminate on his unfortunate situation, the sound of faint voices floating near from beyond the iron bars that served as his prison's doorway caught his ear and focused his sight their way. Upon the narrow sliver of hall he could see beyond, shadows came flickering forth, cluttered together and moving just ahead of the soft voices. A moment later, the women followed their shadows forth; though the shadows passed _through_ the bars of his cell door; the women had to unlock it to gain entrance.

There were three of them in total, each with the bronze skin and thin frames that defined the Gerudo women. They came with wool cloaks over their shoulders—fitting attire for the chillier atmosphere of the desert at night—but wore garb similar to those he'd seen yesterday. Their lower faces were masked in silk veils, loose shirts that exposed their toned bellies hugged their chests, and baggy trousers blossomed from their belted hips. They moved across the prison, their sandaled feet kicking playfully at the patches of sand that had been, Link assumed, splashed about the stone floor to bring a bit of the desert inside, and each of their dark eyes were narrowed on his own beneath their jeweled headbands.

Two of the women pulled up a few feet short of his position and Link could hear their soft giggles drifting mellifluously from beneath their masks. The third pressed forward between the others' shoulders and stepped right up to him till the toes of her sandals pressed against his own feet. Link glared into the woman's almond eyes, flicked across her sharp features and high-set cheekbones, to her auburn hair tied back in a strict ponytail that swayed as she cocked her head and sent her _own_ eyes trailing across his body. When they found his again, she reached for her silk veil and wrestled it down around her neck to fix him with full lips twisted at the corners into a mischievous smirk. The tip of a tongue, pink and moist, slipped from between those lips and ran briefly over them before sliding back into her mouth.

"You're act of defiance today has polarized our camp, slave," the woman said; her voice accented with the harsh Gerudo tongue, but her tone somewhat playful. Link watched her lips as they formed words. It was hard not to: they were pretty. "You did not defeat Jolene in combat… but neither did you submit," she went on. "You refused - refused right into unconsciousness." Her hand reached for his cheek and Link jerked his head away, but the act only broadened her smile and she reached out again, quicker, and took firm hold of his chin to keep him in place. "Now we have you as a captive… and half of us think you a slave, myself included. You may not have spoken your submission, but… your mind gave us what your tongue would not."

"Slave," one of the girls flanking beyond her shoulder taunted.

"Slave," the other echoed. "Our captive and our slave. Nothing more."

Some of the almond-eyed woman's mirth left her smile then as her gaze bore up into his. "But there are those of us in the camp who refuse to enslave you unless you speak your submission aloud. They want you to spar with Jo again… and again… and again. They'd have you sparring with her _forever_ until either you defeated her or you begged for her mercy." The woman's eyes moved briefly back over her shoulder to her 'guards' or whatever they were, and her mischievous smirk returned. "But some of us girls aren't so naive as our sisters. We know there are… _other_ ways to break a man than combat."

"Defiant little man-slave," one of the guards muttered.

The other added, "Needs to learn his place among us Gerudo."

"Beneath our feet."

"Worshipping the ground we walk on."

"My name is Aveil, man-slave," their leader said, firming her hold on his chin so his eyes were forced to her own. "I am going to be your master for awhile. If you understand, nod your head."

Link glared.

Aveil's tongue ran her bottom lip again, her head cocked slightly on its side. "Your anger excites me, slave, but I am not a Gerudo who is known for her patience. I'll ask again, and it would be wise of you to answer me this time." She leaned forth till her narrow nose was pressed to the tip of his. He could smell her copper skin. It smelled clean and fragrant. "I am your _master,_ " she growled. "Do you _understand_?"

Link didn't fear the woman. He'd faced far worse in his travels and lived to tell the tale… but he gave her what she wanted all the same, to calm her a bit if nothing else. He nodded.

"Good." Some of the fire left her eyes then as they fell slowly to his lips. "I'm going to remove your gag now, but do not take that as an invitation to start running that pretty mouth of yours. We've had you gagged for a reason, slave: you have no privilege here to speak without being spoken to. You are a man, and men should be silent unless called on to entertain their masters. Start talking or, Goddesses forbid, shouting, and I'll fix the gag right back on you, twice as tight. Do you understand?"

Link ground his teeth into the cloth wedged between them. He, begrudgingly, gave his acquiescence.

Aveil nodded, reached around for the back of his head, and Link felt her slender fingers working at the gag's knot there. When it loosened, she reached for the knot between his lips and, slowly, worked it free.

"You- _mmf!_ " Link began, but the woman's hand came down immediately over his mouth, clamping firmly and shutting him up.

"I told you not to talk," she warned. "I meant it. Do it again… and I might consider cutting out your tongue."

Her hand pulled free at once, almost daring him to test her patience, but Link only stared into her almond eyes and resolved to remain silent. That seemed to appease the woman, and her hands lifted for his cheeks again. Her fingers slid along his skin, over his ears, and back to run trails in his hair. The lines of the woman's face tightened, and her eyelids fell amorously to half mast as she leaned in closer and stared at his lips. Link tried pulling away, but her hands clamped on the back of his head and held him still as she pounced - her mouth covering his own, warm and moist and full, and she immediately sucked at his bottom lip and nuzzled her nose up against his cheek. Link writhed in place, but his manacled hands and fettered feet made sure his squirming didn't get him far. The woman kissed as if she were a predator and he was her prey, and she had to keep aggressively offensive to conquer him. With each jerk away from her, Aveil moved to counter and kept at his lips with her own.

When she finally pulled away to give them both a chance to catch their wind, she swiped at her lips and heaved heavy breaths, and her hands left the back of his head to run down her own bare arms and belly as she stared at him. "I've wanted a taste of you since we came across your handsome half-naked body lying in our desert, slave," she admitted, a hungry twinkle in her eyes. "You taste… sweet."

"I want a taste of his sweetness, Aveil," one of her guards said, pushing in to loom over the woman's shoulder and sweep her eyes across Link.

"Yes. Let _us_ have a taste, Aveil," said the other as she joined near, filling Link's vision entirely then with the three Gerudo women swarming around him in a tight circle.

"But I am a selfish woman, girls," Aveil told them without removing that penetrating stare of hers from Link's eyes. "I want this man-slave all to myself. I want him kept him in a little cage inside my tent. I want him to massage my back after a hard day's riding and wash the sand and dirt from my feet. I want him to feed me grapes and brush my hair and sing me songs when I desire them." Her hands reached forward and her slender fingers landed delicately on his bare chest, trailed down to trickle over his nipples, slid against the grooves of his muscled abdomen, and slipped into the waistband of his breeches. "And I want him and his manhood to satisfy my needs whenever they need satisfying." A bit deeper into his pants her hands went. "What say you to that, slave? Will you be my property?" Deeper. "Submit yourself to me?"

Link's skin began to run hot and itchy, his breath growing a bit shallow in his chest. Involuntarily, and as angry as it made him, he felt himself stiffen between his legs as her fingers grazed his inner thighs.

The other girls moved to his sides and then their hands were in his hair and their faces were pressing in closely to his own. He felt their warm breath on his ears, and their lips pecked every-so-slightly at his neck.

Before him, Aveil lowered herself to her knees and glanced mischievously to his eyes before returning her focus south and taking hold of his breeches at the waistband.

"Don't," Link muttered, though his throat had suddenly run as dry as the desert.

"Shhhh," Aveil hushed him and yanked his last bit of clothing down to his ankles in one fell sweep. By then, Link had grown hard enough to feel his cock swaying with the momentum of its own sudden freedom from his breeches. The wind was cool on it, but his flesh was heated with desire.

"Oh my," Aveil cooed, a flush of color coming to her bronze cheeks as she stared at his manhood.

The other Gerudo women leaned forward to survey him as well.

"He is like one of our horses outside in the stables," the girl on his right whispered excitedly.

"Yes," the girl on his left added. "This one will make a fine slave and a proper… satisfier."

They both giggled and snickered and went back to kissing at his neck and running their hands over his chest and stomach.

"What do you want me to do with this big thing down here, slave?" Aveil asked him, and when she talked, she moved her mouth just before the tip of his cock, so that with every word she spoke, a puff of warm air trickled against it.

Link grit his teeth and glowered down at the kneeling woman.

"You wouldn't think it, but us Gerudo women know plenty of ways to pleasure a man, slave," Aveil continued, her lips still sending her breath to play against his erection. "We can be good to our little man-slave… if he submits himself to us."

"Good to our slave," one of the girls echoed.

And the other added, "Good to him and his good to his _man_ hood too."

They giggled.

Aveil leaned just a bit closer to his stiffness and ran her tongue across her bottom lip. "Beg me, slave," she commanded. "Submit to us Gerudo women and beg me to take your cock in my mouth. Isn't that what you want?"

"You do want it, don't you?"

"Want us to pleasure you?"

"Want us to _enslave_ you?"

Aveil pursed her lips and lifted her hands to hover just around the shaft of his erection. They lingered their, fingers writhing, eager to take hold of him and have their way. "Well? Do you submit to us?"

Link closed his eyes. He could hear his heart trying to hammer out of his chest. Sweat dripped from the itchy leather that his skin had become. His breathing came in strange patterns. His body, unfortunately, belonged to the Gerudo then… but his mind was still his own. He shook his head. "No. I don't submit. And I… I don't want this. _Any_ of this." He opened his eyes and stared down into Aveil's. "I _want_ … to go free."

All at once, Aveil's entire facade melted away, and the only thing left staring up at Link on her knees before him was a furious, indignant, woman who'd been denied her victory.

"I told you, fool-of-a-girl," a husky voice came from the opposite end of the room.

Link lifted his head to see the Gerudo women's leader, Jolene, leaned against the window ledge with her arms folded nonchalantly across her chest. He hadn't even noticed her enter the room.

" _Jo_!" Aveil wailed. "I needed just a few more minutes with the prisoner and I could have-"

"Oh, hold your tongue, girl, and save us both the time," Jo interjected with a roll of her eyes. "I told you this one wouldn't be broken so easily. It doesn't matter if I give you the rest of the _night_ to try and pry a submission out of him, you won't get it." The Gerudo leader's eyes narrowed maliciously on Aveil's. "Maybe you're just not pretty enough for him, sweetheart."

Aveil's face reddened with what might have been anger or chagrin; Link could not tell. She barred her teeth and clambered up off her knees to spin on Jolene, but when she looked ready to shout her protest, the Gerudo leader lifted a hand to halt her.

"Enough, Aveil. I gave you your chance. Now go back to camp and cool yourself down before I lock _you_ up in chains for the night, too."

Aveil pouted. "But's it's not fair to-"

" _Aveil_!" Jolene snapped, and her strict tone shut the other woman up fast.

Aveil looked briefly back at Link, pouting like a spoiled child who was being sent to their room, and then stormed across the cell, passing Jolene without so much as a glance, and disappeared into the hall outside.

"Are you other two waiting for a scolding as well, or can you figure out what to do without it?" Jo questioned of the remained Gerudo girls.

They were quick to drop their eyes to their feet and shuffle out of the room after Aveil, muttering apologies to Jolene as they passed her.

When they were alone, Jo fixed her eyes on Link and shook her head in what might have been amusement. "I knew you wouldn't fall for that little game of theirs. I knew it, and yet I let them take their shot." She lifted from the window's ledge and sauntered across the cell with her arms folded over her chest and her ponytail bobbing along behind her head. "Do you know why, prisoner?"

Link was still settling himself, returning his breathing to normal, stilling his pounding heart. He shook his head.

"I let them try to satiate them for a little while," Jolene explained, coming to a slow halt in front of Link's locked-up position. "You see, my girls and I are a subversive and unruly bunch, prisoner. We broke off from our main pack a few months ago and came out here," she lifted her hands to the walls and looked back towards the window peeking out into the desert night, "to live free and on our own. I led them girls from our old camp, and I led them _well_. It's why they listen to me and why they respect me." She stepped closer and hooked her index finger up under Link's chin to hold the line of his eyes with her own. "But listen to me now, prisoner, I can only wrangle the obedience from them for short periods of time. They'll stay away from you because I tell them to… for now. But their hunger for you and… for _this_ ," she reached down for his cock, held it a moment, and then casually lifted his breeches and tucked it back inside them, "that hunger of theirs can't be so easily tamed. They want you. And they'll have you before long."

Link swallowed into his dry throat. "Then let me go."

Jolene smiled patronizingly. "The only way you're leaving this camp, prisoner, is by defeating me in combat. And you'll get your chance at _that_ , rest assured. Tomorrow at high noon. But listen to my words… if you refuse to submit again, you'll only be dragged back in here and locked up nice and tight and helpless. My girls… they might stay away for a little while. But should this drag on another night after that? Or a night after _that_?" She shook her head. "They're going to take you, prisoner… _all_ of you. Do you understand me?"

Link stared.

Jolene held his stare. "If you submit to me tomorrow in front of all my girls… I will promise you decent treatment as my slave. You'll rub my back and feet when I desire it and you'll tend to my horse and you'll make my dinners. On the occasion, I might require you to ride out with me and hunt. Doesn't sound so bad, does it? But if you _don_ _'_ _t_ submit yourself to me?" She gestured back over her shoulder. "My girls are going to get awfully restless, and I won't be able to offer my… _protection_. Do you understand?"

"If I defeat you tomorrow, you'll really let me go?" Link asked.

Jolene squinted. "You won't defeat me, prisoner. Don't make me send you unconscious again. Submit…. submit, and this will work out for you better than any other way it possibly could. _Don_ _'_ _t_ … and the vultures will descend upon you before long."

The two stared quietly into each other's eyes. A cool breeze trickled through the far wall's opening.

"We'll see what happens tomorrow, I suppose," Link told her.

Jolene nodded. "Suppose we will."

She retied the gag into his mouth and checked his chains before leaving him. At the cell door, she pulled a cup of water from an alcove and doused the torch flames, sending the room into darkness. When the bars of his prison slammed shut, Link's gaze drifted out into the canvas of indigo sky above the rolling shadowed hills that was the desert at night. He watched the stars awhile, wondering when he'd ride free beneath them again atop Epona.

Before long, his chin lowered to his chest, and he slept.

He dreamed of a pack of vultures with colorful silk veils around their beaks, circling him, watching… and waiting.


	3. Chapter 3

They came for him at dawn. The barred door of his cell threw back on its rusted hinges and clattered against the stone wall as the entranceway filled with four Gerudo woman: none of which Link had come across before. They were each garbed similarly in a fall of dark, crimson, silks and knee-high boots, and they housed matching steely expressions in their hawkish eyes as they marched across the room to encircle him. Link's eyes drifted from woman to woman, but these four were well-disciplined, and did not seem to carry the same amorous hunger for him that he'd found in so many of the other Gerudo. They only quietly and diligently went about their work, removing the shackles from his hands and feet, holding him firmly between the four of them long enough to rebind his wrists behind his back with a length of rope, and then marching him back across the room at once without a word spoken to exit the cell.

Link went without protest. It felt good to have his arms down against his sides again. They'd kept them strung up above his head over night, and the sensation of his blood finally filling his hands and forearms again was not an unpleasant one. He worked his fingers in and out of fists, feeling the strength slowing returning to them as the girls marched him down a long and narrow corridor, around a twist of serpentine stairs that carried them to a lower floor, and beneath an arched passageway. Link's bare feet moved off of cool stone and onto blistering hot sand, and the Sun's full might came beating down upon his chest and shoulders and arms a moment later, for they had moved him outside once again.

The desert's morning air was dry but crisp, and Link closed his eyes and welcomed it as a soft breeze carried down into the valley from the western dunes. The women's hands came tighter of his arms then, and they pressed in a bit closer to his sides, guarding him more stringently now that the open sky was overhead and the distant call of freedom that was the horizon was the only thing wrapping around him instead of the oppressive stone walls of his cell. Link glanced to his two guards, but they only jerked at his arms and got him moving forward again.

Their procession weaved in and out of tents and pavilions, briskly pacing forward to the center of the village. Link kept a vigilant eye on the shadowed alcoves beneath canopy and stone that fell ubiquitously around them, but found none of the baleful or curious eyes he'd been expecting watching back. In fact, the deeper they travelled towards the big sand clearing before the village's central fountain, it seemed more and more as if the whole village had been up and abandoned, and he and his four guards were the only ones left behind. As they cornered the staked ties of a large drab pavilion, however, the frenetic din of shouts and laughs and clapping began swelling up from the village silence, and shortly after, they treaded along a cobblestone walkway that dipped beneath a trio of arching stones and spilled them out to the combat pit, where the entire village had gathered.

The Gerudo women were bunched up tight along the pit's perimeter, shoulder-to-shoulder, and they were hooting and hollering and shaking fists up over their auburn heads of hair as they watched something intently within the circle between them. When Link's guards led him to the back of a line of ponytailed women, he craned his neck to peer over their shoulders and get a glimpse himself.

Inside, two women were wrestling one another atop the desert carpet of golden sands. One was more muscled than most of the other Gerudo, and wore indigo trousers and a matching blouse. She—despite her clear physical superiority to her opponent—was on her back, having her face filled with handfuls of sand by the other Gerudo, who Link recognized immediately. The thin and wiry woman mounted atop her fallen opponent was Kotake. Link knew at once when he saw a flash of her wild, bright-green, eyes beneath the loose fall of her stringy hair that walked the thin line between red and orange, and remembered her inane question from the previous day: ' _Do you like to be teased and tortured, mystery man?_ _'_ _._ Link's fists curled a bit tighter at the small of his back upon remembrance of her menacing voice speaking into his mind.

The woman fought as wildly as her eyes shone, scrambling about on her hands and knees in the sand every time her opponent attempted to utilize her superior strength advantage. Kotake backstepped a swing, ducked another, and flashed a broad, toothy, grin as she leaped over her foe's attempt to wrap up her legs and worked her way behind the indigo woman's stout figure. She screeched through clenched teeth like some primitive beast and leaped for the woman's turned back. When she got hold of it, Kotake wrapped her wiry arms and legs around the woman's torso and squeezed her tight back against her own body. The indigo woman winced and made to grab handfuls of her hair. Kotake wrenched her head back to avoid it, but the woman's weight went with her, and the two rolled back into the sand, landed atop one another, and each quickly scrambled to regain superior position over the other.

It was Kotake who came up with it, taking a fistful of her opponent's hair and dragging her head down to the ground before saddling up atop her again and forcing her face into the sand. The indigo woman's arms flailed out to her sides and her legs kicked, but the struggling only seemed to awaken some violent delight in Kotake as her vibrant green eyes blossomed to saucers and she threw her head back to howl shrill laughter into the pale morning sky. The indigo woman, perhaps running out of breath with her nose and mouth filling with sand, opened her fist to a slap and began beating it against the ground in submission.

Kotake giggled, clapped, and leaped off her fallen opponent to raise her arms triumphantly to the crowd. A smattering of mixed cheers and groans ran through the Gerudo, and Link saw a great number of transactions start up at once; little ruby jewels and silver necklaces and skins of wine being passed from (he presumed) those who had placed their bets on the indigo woman to those who'd placed them on Kotake. Kotake's grin ran from pointed ear to pointed ear as she skipped around the pit's perimeter, sticking her tongue out at the losers and winking at the winners. When her eyes found Link, though, she halted in place immediately.

" _Slave_!" She cheered, and sent every pair of Gerudo eyes his way. "I've missed you! And I've heard so much about you and your… _big_ secret." Her gaze lowered to his breeches and she bit at her bottom lip.

The Gerudo women's previous woes of defeat or triumphs of victory were forgotten at once, and every one of them came crowding in around him, whispering and tittering with whoever was beside them as they pointed and surveyed him up and down. A few drew too close, one even daring so much as to reach for the drawstring of his breeches' waistband, but his crimson guards were quick to keep the wandering women at bay, despite their groans and reproachful looks. He spotted Aveil near the back of the crowd, her arms folded defiantly across her chest, her lips still pouting in that spoiled-child expression she'd been wearing when he'd seen her last: being ordered from his dungeon cell the night before.

Kotake came shouldering through the girls at the front of the line and fixed her wild eyes on Link before jabbing a finger in his direction. " _You_ _'_ _ve_ got something to show us girls, slave, and we want to _see_ it _!_ "

"Keep your distance, Crazy-Kotake," one of his crimson guards muttered balefully, shifting to her front foot in the sand to better shield him from the grinning hyena-of-a-woman staring at him. " _This_ prize is not yours. He belongs to Jo until he submits."

" _He_ might belong to Jolene and her little code of honor," Kotake countered, planting her fists on her hips at either side of the toned bare belly below her silks. "But that mighty serpent we've heard so much about that lurks below his breeches should be _ours_!" Her grin widened as she swept her eyes across the crowd. "Right, girls!?"

Some laughed, some agreed, and some… some only bit at their lips and stared at Link as if he were nothing more than a meal waiting to be devoured.

Kotake threw her head back in laughter and tried slipping through the guards to reach for Link's waist, but the crimson twins shouldered together and blocked her grasping hand's path. Kotake recoiled and fixed them with a frown. "He's _our_ slave!" She whined. "And we want those cute little breeches of his _off_!"

A guard began: "Jo says-"

Kotake rolled her eyes and interjected. "Oh, give it a rest, ladies! 'Jo says' this, and 'Jo says' that. Don't you girls every think for yours _elves_?"

"Jo _also_ says you need remember your place, Kotake," a voice came from the rear of the crowd, and a channel opened at once to cut a path for their leader, Jolene, to come sauntering up to the group gathered at the combat pit's outer rim.

Kotake's defiant demeanor melted away at once, and even _she_ seemed to shrink away and grow timid as Jolene stepped before her and fixed her with her dark eyes. Kotake tried slipping back into the crowd, but Jo snatched her by the wrist and kept her in place.

"Wild child," Jo began, sweeping a scrutinizing look over the girl. "As wild as one of our horses, I'd say. Tell me, Kotake, do you need to be saddled, bridled, and locked in a stable like the rest of our wild beasts? Hm?"

"N-No…" Kotake muttered, staring down at the sand as if it had suddenly become the most interesting thing in Hyrule.

"No? Hm?" Jo cupped her chin and lifted the younger Gerudo's eyeline to her own. "Are you going to behave then?"

Kotake swallowed, stared, nodded.

Jolene seemed satisfied enough with the silent response. "Good girl. Now go back to your tent. You're not allowed to watch the sparring match this morning. A wild thing like you doesn't need anymore excitement in her life."

Kotake's face scrunched up indignantly. "But that's not _fair,_ Jo! I-"

"Fair?" Jolene cut her off, leaning a bit closer to loom over the shorter woman and cock her head on its side.

The courage ran from the other Gerudo's visage, and she simply pressed her lips together and lowered her eyes. "Yes, Jolene. I'll got back to my tent."

"Go then, and stop wasting my time."

Jo released her, and Kotake begrudgingly shouldered past the crimson guard, shooting them vengeful eyes and Link himself a brief, but menacing, look as well before disappearing into the crowd. When she'd gone, Jolene had the clearing to herself, and she used the opportunity to look over the crowd shaking her head.

"You were well-behaved girls once, ladies," she told them in her loud and commanding voice. "And now I got fetch you one, little, man and you've all turned bestial. And what was this I heard about a 'mighty serpent' in his breeches?" She lifted a brow and looked for reply, but none in the crowd dared give it. She chortled. "Cowards. Now… I wonder who could've started such a dirty, dirty, rumor like that one."

Past the first few lines of the Gerudo crowd, Link could see the apprehension tightening the lines of Aveil's face. The woman shrunk away and began moving for the back of the group, but Jolene spun on her at once and angled a long, slender, finger her way.

"Aveil! Where do you think _you_ _'_ _re_ going?"

Aveil froze, swallowed, and eyed the other girls around her as if searching for aid. None came, however, and she was left in a slightly smaller clearing as Jo neared and the rest gave them a wide berth.

Jo sauntered up to her, slipped around her shoulder, and when Aveil made to turn and follow, grasped her by the upper arm and kept her facing forward. Aveil's discomfort was clear enough on her face as she shifted her feet around in the sand and chewed on her bottom lip. Over her shoulder, Jolene's muscled arms came draping around her torso and pulled the woman tight against her.

"Kotake is as wild as a horse," Jo said, pressing her lips close to the other woman's pointed ear; her breath stirring the big golden hoop-earring that dangled there. "And _you_ … you, Aveil, are nothing but a little whore, aren't you?"

Aveil's mouth fell agape and her copper cheeks reddened with chagrin, but she spoke no protest as Jolene's hands slipped down to run fingers across her belly, and just like that Link believed he understood why the Gerudo leader didn't seem to care for him, nor house the same hunger for his body as the rest: he didn't think Jolene would take a liking to _any_ man, for the tall women seemed to have other… preferences.

"Skinny little whore, that's what you are, Aveil," Jo told her. Her hands lifted to the woman's silk blouse and played at the dangling strings there keeping it in place. "You all want to see our new prisoner's manhood, is that it?"

A chorus of muttering moved through the crowd, but no one solitary reply could be ascertained from within.

"That's what you want, girls, don't play the fool with me," Jolene told them. "But I ask you: wouldn't it be unfair to make our prisoner display himself without proper… _excitement_ to prepare for such a showing?" Jolene pinched at Aveil's blouse strings and gently tugged. The woman's breasts came a bit fuller against the silk that covered them, but Jo did not remove the top completely.

"Jo, please," Aveil whispered. It looked to be requiring quite a bit of effort for her to keep her hands down at her sides as the Gerudo leader toyed with her.

"Please?" Jo echoed cruelly and tugged at the strings a bit more. The bands of azure silk reaching up around Aveil's neck came loose, and had Jo not wrapped an arm around her chest at that exact moment, would have fell away completely and exposed her bare breasts to the entire camp. "Please, _what_ , Aveil? Isn't this what you want? To excite the prisoner? To get his blood all hot and itchy so that he comes and scratches your _own_ dirty little itch?"

Aveil squirmed a bit, but again remained silent. Jolene's cruel smirk widened as she nuzzled at the woman's neck.

A thought came upon Link. He shifted his gaze from the strange scene before him to the crimson guards at his flanks. They were watching Jo and Aveil intently, as was most of the camp. Link look further beyond them, to the thinned-out section of crowd just beyond the guards and a few stray women, to the rows of tents and pavilions and stone structures sprawling out over the village that, if he were to reach them, could be lost within their labyrinthine channels in but a few moments. He twisted his bound hands back and forth a few times behind his back, testing his binds, wondering how he might loose them if he _were_ to elude the Gerudo crowd. His teeth sunk into the knot of his gag almost involuntarily. The odds were so low… but the drive to be free and to at least _attempt_ an escape was so high… Could he make it to Epona, perhaps? Would she be able to bite his ropes and free him? And what if he were caught? What would be the consequences?

Questions circled and cycled through his mind, but his window of opportunity was rapidly closing, and the time to think was over: the time to _act_ had come. He glanced once more back at Jolene and Aveil—the former now running her long hands up the latter's increasingly uncomfortable face—and made his decision.

He threw his weight sideways. The guard at his shoulder was took unawares by the blow, and went fumbling back over her own two feet to plop onto her ass in the sands. Link was already turned and making his move by then, but he felt the other guard's hand just brush against his bare arm in attempt to recapture him as he pushed off his heel and went barreling into the crowd. A few Gerudo women's mouth's fell open in his path, a few more went wide-eyed and threw their arms up defensively, and a small number of them even moved to close off the lanes and trap him, but Link was moving fast then, and there weren't enough to keep him contained. He shouldered through the frail blockade of the Gerudo's interlaced arms and breached the outer rim of the crowd. There was shouting and hollering swelling up from his rear then, but Link had no intentions of sticking around to see whom was doing all the protesting: he dug his heels into the sand and cut a hard line for the tents.

The din of shouting followed tightly behind him as he slid to a knee rounding the corner of the first tent in a long row. He made himself stand, found his balance, and sprinted halfway down the channel of sand before cutting hard to his right and slipping between another two. He moved into an adjacent row, cornered it, dashed down a few tents, sidled over into another row, did it all again. He could hear the women coming, some grunting and growling like ferocious beasts, some cheering as if they were enjoying the hunt, and some calling out orders to others to fan the perimeter, spread out, recapture the 'slave'. Link hadn't eaten in over a day and his legs were a bit stiff from misuse, but his adrenaline was pumping and his heart was racing, and there was no way he was going to slow down and allow himself to fall back into the Gerudo's hands.

He pushed on, digging his bare feet into the sand harder and harder as he went, wishing he had the use of his arms to balance his weight. He found a low-hanging barracks across a lane of tents built up of old chipped bricks and drab canvas, and shuffled around the side of it as soon as he'd closed the gap. He shuffled back between the rear of the building and the shoulder-high wall that ran the village's perimeter, and then—and only then—allowed himself a brief respite to catch his wind and collect himself.

As he heaved and panted and took in what little of the surroundings he could wedged between the barracks and the wall, he could hear voices coming and going past his position, just beyond the edge of the building. He jerked at his bound wrists and tried rubbing them against a ridge of jagged rock lining the stone at his side, but couldn't get a proper angle for the dull thing to start fraying the ropes proper. At his feet, a sand scarab came crawling out from a web of cracks at the walls base, and Link kicked it aside when it neared. He lifted his eyes to the pale stretch of cloudless sky watching over the village and focused his thoughts. Where could he go? How could he free himself?

It was those thoughts he was ruminating on when a stir of movement in his periphery snapped his head to the narrow crevice at the end of the barracks-wall wedge he was hiding in. There, the brutish woman in indigo silks he'd seen wrestling earlier filled the gap and lowered her head to fix her eyes greedily on him. Her hands reached before her, her thick fingers wiggled, she stepped forward.

Link spun around and made for the opposite side of the barracks. He'd gotten four steps before he felt the woman's hands scraping down his bare back and looking to wrangle up his bound wrists. Link ground his teeth against his gag and yanked away, and behind him, the woman roared and yelped. When he reached the end of the wall, he turned back only long enough to see her splayed out on her belly, glaring up at him furiously.

" _Here!_ " She bellowed into her indigo mask. " _The prisoner is here! HERE!_ "

Thankfully, Link wouldn't be 'there' for long. He ran.

Back into the village he went, just in time to see a trio of women sprinting down the near lane of tents for his position. He cut hard back towards the wall and darted alongside it, hoping they hadn't seen which way he went. He followed the wall down, passing a myriad of carpets and tents and structures, until he found the thing's corner, where a large pavilion had been erected, and sat looming over the rest of the village. He considered it only long enough to hear the shrill wailing of one of his pursuers closing in on him before he ducked below the front flaps of the thing.

Inside, the atmosphere was shadowed and cool, and his feet thanked him at once to be free from the hot sands outside. Without torch or window, however, it was also dark, and Link's eyes had not yet adjusted from the harsh illumination of the desert sun. He stumbled blindly a few steps forward and found carpeting underfoot. A few more steps and he could see he was in some sort of meeting hall (emptied, thankfully) with long benches stretching out over a plush carpet and apexing at a wooden podium on a dais. He hurried down the middle of the benches and reached the podium just as a chorus of angry voices came grunting and growling outside the pavilion's entrance. Link made for the very rear of the interior, dropped to lay on his back atop the ground, and rolled out to slip beneath the crevice where the pavilion's canvas met the sand.

Back outside he came rolling, clambering arduously up to his feet immediately. He swept his eyes across the surroundings, looking to plot his next route of escape, when he found what he _should_ have been looking for the whole time: the stables. He hurried to them at once, casting a flick of his eyes warily around for any predatory Gerudo, but thankfully found none.

Epona wasn't hard to spot. She was bigger than the mares and coursers the Gerudo women kept by a good foot or so, and her pretty mane of stark white hair cut through even the darkest shadows of the stables overhang. Link went to her, and Epona's big eyes found him at once and sent the horse whinnying and clopping her hooves down to beat at the stone floor of her prison. And it _was_ a prison, Link saw. The stable looked custom built, with a large, barred, door bolted shut before it; a black circle peeking out of the thing, waiting for a key to release it. He grunted and stomped his own foot to join in with Epona's frustration. There was nothing he could do without the key.

He lifted his eyes to her own and held them. Epona whinnied again and shook out her mane, but Link couldn't even offer so much as a comforting or reassuring word with the gag still tightly wedged in his mouth. He did what he had to: pried his gaze from her and sent it out to search for some other plan elsewhere.

From the direction of the pavilion, the shouting was nearing. Link shied away from it and made to run the opposite direction, but had only gotten two steps before hearing _more_ shouting closing in from that way too. He bit his gag in frustration at his poor luck and looked for another route.

It was then that he saw her. Just down the nearest row of tents, peeking out from one of the smaller ones with her hand lifted and gesturing him near; and her bight green eyes fixed on him and making her look just as wild and mad as ever.

" _Come slave!_ " Kotake whisper-shouted. " _Come to me! Hurry!_ "

Link weighed his options, but it wasn't long before the voices on either side came pressing down just around the corners of the pavilion and the wall. With little other choice, he went.

Kotake's grin widened as he approached, and when Link was in grabbing range, she did just that. Her hands darted forward and wrapped his arms, yanking him under the flaps of her tent just as Link heard the shouting close on the stables position behind him.

He landed on his side atop a carpet within the dimness of the tent. At either end, the slits from the flaps allowed thin trails of sunlight inside, but little else. Link worked himself up onto one knee and made to stand, but Kotake's hand took him by the shoulder and forced him down to the carpet again.

" _Grmf!_ " Link grunted as she held him in place.

"Shhh, slave," Kotake hushed him with a finger stretched before her thin lips. "They'll _hear_ you. I have to keep you safe. Keep you… hidden!"

" _Mmmph!_ " Link mumbled, trying to twist around and show her his bound hands. If she wanted to 'help', that was the one thing she could do to accomplish it.

"What? Untie you?"

" _Mmm._ " Link nodded vehemently.

Kotake chewed her lip and twirled a strand of her stringy orange hair around her finger. "Hmm… nope." And with that declaration made, she fished out a thin white blanket from a trunk beside her cot and tossed it over him. Link only had enough time to shout a few muffled protests, though, before he felt her tucking the blanket all around him, twisting him side to side to wrap him up entirely, and before long, he was practically cocooned in the thing. Kotake tightened him in it somehow even further, constricting his arms down to his sides and his legs and feet tightly together. Link grunted against his gag and writhed about, but he could not budge an inch.

Then he heard the woman's voice come softly against his ear as her hands stilled him. "Quiet now, my slave. There are mean, mean, girls looking for you out there. You'll be better off here, stashed beneath my cot until they think you've escaped."

" _Mmmmmm!_ " Link could only answer in the darkness of his cocoon.

"And when they _do_ think you've run off…" Kotake continued, and Link could practically hear the smile on her face. "Then you and I will have some _fun,_ slave!"

She laughed her mad laugh and Link felt her lips press to his cocooned brow and kiss before she reminded him once more of the dangers of being caught, and then he heard her hurry out of the tent, presumably to help 'look for him' with the others.

Link squirmed a bit in the blanket and considered trying to make some noise, but as he thought on it, he realized there was no one he could bring to his aid anyway, and so resolved to lie still, collect his thoughts, and figure a way out of this mess he'd found himself in. And after all, escaping _one_ Gerudo had to be easier than escaping a whole village…

…he hoped.


	4. Chapter 4

Link had lost track of time. It was an easy thing to do considering he'd been tightly wrapped from head-to-toe in a blanket and stashed away in a tent beneath a cot, but the disorientation of not knowing if it were midday or dusk still perturbed him. He squirmed from time to time, testing the cocoon of a blanket Kotake had left him in, but her wrapping had been solid, and he believed she must have further secured him with ties at his ankles and shoulders, for he could not find an edge to begin working himself free from at all. Beyond the thin layer of blanket around his ears, he could hear the other Gerudo moving outside Kotake's tent occasionally. The brief sound of their voices in passing carried a tense tone that made it seem like the whole camp was on edge, and though he couldn't say for sure, Link figured Jolene was the one responsible for that. She did not seem like the kind of woman to take an 'escapee' lightly, and would almost certainly stop at nothing until he'd been recaptured.

_If only she knew I_ _'_ _ve already_ been _recaptured,_ Link mused, writhing against his cocoon. _And by one of her own girls at that._

It was a long while in that sweaty blanket before his kidnapper's voice returned to him. " _Slave,_ " Kotake whispered near to his head, and Link felt her hands fall atop the curve of his hip and shoulder to tug him forward. " _I think it_ _'_ _s safe now, slave. I_ _'_ _m going to unwrap you. You behave yourself, though. There is danger all around us._ _"_ She worked him forward again, rolling him slowly atop the sands and blanket, and Link could only assume she was removing him from beneath her cot. After a few more rolls, he felt fingers prying their way inside his cocoon, and in another moment - he was freed.

Well, _partially_ freed. The blanket fell away and Link was left sitting on the floor of Kotake's tent, his hands still bound tightly behind his back with ropes, his mouth still gagged with a knotted bandana, but at least he was out of the hot wrappings of the blanket. He surveyed his surrounding immediately. Beyond the flaps at either end of the tent, he could see the sun was nearly fallen below the dunes again, and the soft purple haze of twilight had settled down over the desert village, leaking pastel streaks of fuchsia through the narrow slits between the flaps. It illuminated Kotake's sparse furnishings: a cot and the trunk at its foot atop a plush carpet with frilled trim, and a solitary table with an unlit candle resting atop it near the cot's head.

Link turned his gaze on Kotake herself kneeling beside him, and found (with a stirring of unease) the girl smiling at him; her vibrant green eyes twinkling with mad delight. Her hair was let down, falling in wavy, orange-red, strands to drape her bare shoulders. She was garbed in amber silks that hugged tightly at her chest and puffy white trousers that ended just below her knees, where her high, pointed-toed, boots took over. Her hands were clasped together eagerly before her; her top teeth nibbled at her bottom lip.

Link stared at her a moment, unsure of what to do. He twisted at the ropes locked around his wrists and wished she'd just take the annoying things off of him already. He had been kept in bondage by the Gerudo since they'd first come upon him, and was growing increasingly tired of it.

"Jo's very angry with you, my slave," Kotake finally spoke into the quietness of the tent. "She doesn't like losing, and by slipping away from her so easily today, you _won_. You defeated her."

Link chewed his gag. It certainly didn't _taste_ like victory.

"Though… without _me_ you probably would have been captured again pretty quickly, huh?" Kotake asked with a mischievous smirk tugging at the corner of her thin lips. "I guess that makes me your savior." The smirk widened. "Oh, and I brought you something, my slave. Look here. For you."

From beside her bent knees folded atop the carpet, the girl lifted a silver platter and swung it out between them. Rolling around on the polished surface of its face was the most delicious, juicy-looking, fruit Link had ever seen: apples and pears and plums and cherries.

" _Mmm,_ " he involuntarily mumbled against his gag upon eyeing the things. He had not eaten in over a day's time, and the sight of a meal so near to him—near enough to smellthe fruit's sweetness wafting on the gentle current breezing through the tent—had awoken every last bit of his hunger in one fell sweep. His eyes moved from the fruit to Kotake's and silently pleaded.

His expression prompted a look of pure delight onto the Gerudo girl's face as she stared in her wild way back at him. "You're hungry, slave."

It wasn't really a question, but he nodded all the same.

"You… desire this?" She lifted the tray higher to force it into his line of sight.

His stomach growled. He nodded again, this time more ardently to emphasize his hunger.

Kotake lifted her chin and poked at his chest. "And what would you _do_ to satisfy that desire, my slave, hmm?"

_A game,_ Link realized, thinking himself a fool for ever believing it was anything else in the first place. His urge to fill his belly had nulled his mind. Of _course_ it was a game. The girl was only wielding her power over him for her own delight. He sighed and pried his eyes from the fruit.

"Oh, no, my slave! Don't be sad!" Kotake cooed, crawling on her knees to press herself closer to him. "I won't torture you much longer! I only want to ensure that when I remove that muzzle from your mouth, I have your obedience, and you won't shout and get us _both_ in trouble."

Link returned his eyes to hers, searching the wild things for some trace of sincerity. She was a hard one to read, but with little options left to him, he simply conceded to her request and obediently nodded his head again.

"You'll keep nice and quiet for me, my slave?" She crawled a bit closer and looked him over. "Well… I suppose I'll just have to trust you then, won't I? Come. Let me put you on the cot."

With that, Kotake lifted to her feet and hooked her hands under Link's arms without waiting for his consent. She pulled, and Link had no choice but to rise on shaky legs and, briefly, stand beside her before her hands were on his shoulders and shoving him back down, this time to land with a soft thud against the springy mattress of her cot. Kotake worked her hands over his sides to situate him laying flat on his back before moving to the foot of the bed and pulling two lengths of silk from the trunk there. When she moved to bind one of Link's ankles with the silk, he pulled his leg away and grunted his protest.

"Only a precaution, slave," Kotake explained, firmly taking him by the ankle again and forcing his foot down to the corner of the bed before looping it in silks and tethering it to the cot's underside. "I can't have you getting any ideas about running off on me now, can I?" She secured one foot, moved to the other, did the same. When it was done, Link's legs were spread and stretched to the ends of the bed with little to no slack to maneuver them.

Kotake looked him over and rubbed her fingers together before a little excited squeal escaped her throat. "Never thought I'd have a big, strong, handsome man like you all tied up in my tent like this, my slave." She stared at his body a moment longer before taking the candle by its holder, slipping outside, and returning a moment later with the thing's wick aflame. She carried it carefully forth to set back on the table, the flames sending the shadow of her tangle of hair dancing wildly on the tent behind her. Then she hastily slipped back to the side of the bed and perched herself on its edge to loom over him.

Link squirmed a bit uncomfortably beneath her penetrating stare, but what else could he do? He was too tightly bound up then to hide from the piercing green daggers of her eyes.

"I'm going to take your gag off now," Kotake explained. "You remember though, slave, if we were to be caught in here, _this_ ," she lifted the platter of fruit, "would go away without one tasty bite landing in your cute little belly." Her eyes flicked to his stomach and her hand reached out to quickly brush her fingertips along it. Link squirmed and Kotake giggled, but left it alone to reach for his head instead.

She untied his gag. When her fingers worked the big knot out from between his teeth, he stretched his jaw about, thankful for the freedom to do so, and licked at his lips. "Water?" He asked.

"Of course." She reached for a canteen beside the cot and brought it up between them to twist the cap off. When it was done, she leaned in over him, the springs of the mattress groaning in protest beneath her weight, and laid the steel rim of the nozzle on his bottom lip. Link lifted his head as best he could and Kotake poured the drink into his waiting mouth.

He nearly choked when the wine came bitter and dry against his tongue, but Kotake held his chin and kept pouring, and Link had no choice but to drink. When she finally halted her assault on his mouth, he'd been forced to drink down nearly half the canteen, and had scarlet trails of fine wine dribbling down over his chin and neck and collarbone.

He caught his breath and glared up at her. "That's not _water_!"

"Shhhh," she hushed him with a finger to her lips. "I could not fetch you water, my slave. I did the best I could." She moved the finger from her lips to her cheek and twirled a rogue strand of hair there. "Did you like it?"

"It's _wine_."

"I know. Did you like it?"

Link held the girl's waiting eyes, doing his best to contain his anger. "What are you going to do with me?"

She giggled. "Feed you, of course. Here." She plucked the big, juicy, apple from the tray and dangled it before his lips. "Open wide now, slave."

"Link."

She raised a brow. "Hm?"

"My name. It's Link. I don't particularly care for being called 'slave' by everyone."

" _Link_?" She echoed, a smile spreading across her face. "What a pretty name. Mine is Kotake."

"Untie me, Kotake," he told her at once. "Untie my hands. Please."

"I'm not going to untie you, slave, er, uh, _Link_. I won't. You can't be trusted, and I want to have some fun with you anyway."

"This is a crime against Hylian law," he explained. "You've kidnapped me and now you're holding me against my-"

Kotake's giggling cut him short. "Oh, poor Link! Silly thing. You're in the desert now, handsome, and the Gerudo don't _live_ by Hylian rules, we live by _Gerudo_ rules."

Link narrowed his eyes on hers. "And what are those?"

Kotake's brow scrunched up pensively a moment before she offered a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. "I'm not really sure. _I_ don't really follow those either." She laughed.

"Listen, you- _armph!_ " His voice was muffled as Kotake shoved the apple between his teeth. He was angry only a moment till the freshness of its skin pressed against his tongue, and the sweet juice of its core trickled free as his teeth sunk deeper in. He bit, the tent filling with a satisfying _crunch_ , and the first swallow of the fruit was about the best thing he'd ever had. He wasted no time in leaning in for another bite.

"Is it good?" The girl asked, watching him devour the apple with a satisfied little grin.

Link was too busy eating to speak. He flicked his eyes to hers, nodded, and went back to the apple immediately.

Kotake quietly watched him eat for awhile, and when the fruit had been stripped to its core, she took the pit away and tossed it to the plate before lifting the canteen at her feet again and brining it to his lips.

"To wash your food down with," she explained.

"No," Link managed to protest before she shoved the nozzle between his lips anyway and tipped the wine back down his throat. It was dry and bitter, but somehow delicious all the same, and as he was forced to drink, his throat and chest and belly were filled with the a warm tingling. That time, Kotake didn't pull the canteen away until he'd emptied the thing entirely.

"See how good I treat my slave, Link?" She asked. "See how nice I can be?"

He closed his eyes and opened them again, and the interior of the tent wobbled a bit. He had to squint to focus his vision on the Gerudo girl hovering over him to ask her again, "Will you untie me now?"

"No," she answered plainly enough, and instead of untying him, set the fruit platter and empty canteen aside to pull the boots off her feet one by one. When she finished, she crawled barefoot onto the cot herself and swung one knee over Link's hips to lower herself atop his waist, straddling him like a horse.

"What are you doing?" He asked, but the room wobbled again a bit before he finished (the wine's work, undoubtedly) and had to close his eyes to still it.

"Just sitting here," Kotake answered. She shifted her weight a bit, and Link felt her bottom slide against his crotch. "Why, Mr. Link? What would you _like_ me to be doing?"

He knew what she wanted to hear. He didn't give it to her. "What I _want_ you to be doing…" He opened his eyes. "Is untying my hands and feet."

The Gerudo girl rolled her eyes. "Goddesses, you are a stubborn one, slave. If you ask me to untie you again…" She pursed her lips and glanced around the tent. "Ah! I'll take that pear and shove it so deep in your pretty mouth you won't be able to talk anymore. Is that what you want, Link? For me to shut you up with that pear? Hmm?"

"No."

"Good. Then no more talk about being untied. Relax yourself. And be _quiet_." Her hands fell down between her straddling thighs and landed softly atop his stomach. She spread her fingers wide as she ran them up along his sides to squeeze and pinch and rub at the flesh of his chest and arms. "Such soft and fair skin you have, Link," she said; her voice quieting; her tone growing amorous. "Muscles, too." She groped for his biceps and shoulders, moved up to his neck and chin. She leaned close.

"What are you doing…?" He asked.

"Shhhh," she whispered, laying a finger gently over his lips. Her rear shifted again, and Link felt himself stiffen when her ass cheeks pressed against his crotch. She began undulating her hips back and forth, slowly, and with each movement, her ass rubbed against his cock, working it stiffer and stiffer, despite Link's frustration.

"Stop," he told her, closing his eyes and feeling the wine send the cot spinning a bit below them.

"Stop what?" She asked. "I'm just sitting here." Her ass cheeks came down on either side of his erection, wedging the swollen mound growing from his breeches between them. Kotake's brow lifted. "Ooo! So you _are_ a man after all, Mr. Link. Your excitement feels… _large_." She giggled.

"I don't want this," he protested.

"You might not," she admitted, "but what's between your legs certainly does."

"Let me go."

Kotake sighed, looking him over as she kept working her ass over his crotch. "Tell me, do you have some girl waiting for you back in Hyrule, Link? Some nice, fair-skinned, Hylian girl with perky little tits and pretty blue eyes like yours? Hmm?"

Only one face came to his mind's eyes: a pretty blonde princess in a castle, of whom which a simple forest-born like himself could only dream of someday obtaining. He forced the image from his mind and shook his head. "No. No girl."

"Aww, no?" Kotake cooed. "Poor Mr. Link. All alone." She eyed him a moment as a grin slowly creeped up her cheek. "Link… have you never been with a woman?"

"I…"

"Oh, you poor boy." She laughed, angled her arms around to her backside, and worked at something there.

A moment later, the amber silks around her chest fell away, and Link was left staring up at her bare breasts hovering over him; smooth and soft-looking, with light brown skin and lighter nipples that were just a bit swollen with excitement themselves. Kotake swayed her hips side-to-side and sent her tits shaking for him. Link grew so stiff then, his breeches began to feel more like a prison than an article of clothing.

"Do you think I'm pretty?" Kotake asked.

Link swallowed. His throat felt dry. His heart was coming in irregular intervals in his chest.

"Link?" She called to him, lowering her hands to his stomach again and playing with the drawstring of his breeches. "I asked you if you thought I was pretty."

"I… yes," he admitted. He didn't _want_ to, but it came slipping from his tongue anyway. Truthfully, she was pretty enough before, but since she'd started rubbing against him—and _particularly_ after she'd removed her silks—he was finding her more and more irresistible by the second. _The wine,_ an inner voice reminded him. _It is the wine. She forced it upon you to lower your inhibitions._ He ruminated on that thought a moment, but Kotake was subtly grinding herself against him again, and his own voice of reason began to sound less reasonable and more annoying with every passing moment.

"You're pressing into me, Link," Kotake told him. "It must be quite uncomfortable down there. Do you want me to remove your breeches?"

He opened his mouth; closed it again quickly. He didn't trust his words. They might betray him. For once, he wished the gag was back in his mouth.

"Mr. Link?"

He shook his head.

"Aww. Don't you want to be comfortable, though?" When he didn't answer, she chewed her lip and came crawling forward, planting her arms down on the mattress at either side of his neck. "Link?" She pressed close enough for the erect nipples of her bare breasts to fall against his own chest. Her breath played against his neck, his chin, his lips. "Don't you think I'm pretty?" He had no choice then but to look into her eyes—those wild, vibrant, green things that were peaking out from beneath her half-mast lids—and stare back at her. "Don't you want to make love to me?"

"I…" The room spun from the wine. His seems of his breeches felt ready to split. Her skin looked so soft. So ready to be kissed and tasted.

" _Kotake_ ," a harsh voice bore into the tent from outside the flaps.

Kotake muttered a curse and reached up to clamp a hand tightly down over Link's mouth at once to keep him silent. " _What_!?" The girl growled, clearly frustrated at the interruption.

"Jo's guard just came for Aveil," the other Gerudo answered, staying—thankfully—beyond the tent flap.

Kotake's expression was hard to read above him. She narrowed her eyes into the sand and furrowed her brow. "They took Aveil?"

"Yes. I'm just letting you know because that little run-in you had with Jo earlier today… Kotake, they might come for you next."

"I see… Thanks for the warning then, Telma."

Silence was the reply, and Link figured the other Gerudo had left. Kotake, clearly, felt the same, as she released his mouth from beneath her hand and stood off the cot to pace atop her plush carpet, her brow drawn pensively, her hands working against one another, her breasts swaying.

"What's happened?" Link asked, still trying to slow his heartbeat and wait out the uncomfortableness in his breeches. "What did that women mean 'they might come for you next'?"

Kotake's eyes flicked to his, held, moved back to the sands. She paced a few more times before reaching for the fruit platter, snatching up the plum, and taking a big bite.

Link had no idea what was happening, but he was able to focus his thoughts enough to see the opportunity in it. "Look… if you untie me, I can take you with me when I escape. If you're in trouble… I can get you out of here. My horse, Epona, we can-"

Kotake's mirthless laughter cut him off. "You're a fool, Mr. Link, if you think you can get away from Jolene. She's not the type of woman to let people just walk away."

"But yesterday," he began, "I heard you say they were other slaves here. Slaves that escaped!"

"Jo _says_ they escaped," the girl admitted. "But… most of the older Gerudo don't buy it. They know what's really going on here."

" _What_!?" Link pleaded. "Tell me! Maybe… maybe I can help you."

Kotake fixed a patronizing smile on him before sauntering back to the cot and lowering herself to perch on its edge. "You're a sweet thing, Link, but only _I_ can help myself now. Jolene… she takes us girls… takes us and sometimes we don't come back. She's been doing it since she led us away from our main camp a few months ago. She likes to capture a man, bring him into the village, get us girls all riled up by parading him around half-naked in front of us, and then deny him to us and punish us for ever desiring him in the first place. Then a few girls get brought up to Jolene's room… and then the man 'disappears'." Her eyes trailed off to stare at nothing.

"What does Jolene do with them?" Link asked.

"The girls? Has her way with them. She's like that. Has no taste for a man, but _starve_ for a woman. The slaves?" She shrugged. "Who can say for sure but Jolene herself."

Link twisted at the ropes binding his wrists. "Kotake… you have to untie me now."

Her eyes found his again. "I can't."

"You _can_! Just… just cut me free!"

She chewed her lip, seeming to consider the notion a moment before telling him, "No, Mr. Link. You're safer here for now. I've got to… go gather some information." She reached for the gag lying beside his head and readied its knot for his mouth again.

"You don't have to gag me," he told her.

"I don't think I trust you quite that well yet, Link," she replied, leaned in, and kissed him.

Her lips were soft and warm against his own, and Link's eyes shut involuntarily as she pressed against him. When she pulled the kiss away, he opened his eyes just in time to see her wedging the gag back into his mouth. " _Mmmmph!_ "

"Stay quiet in here," she told him, "and you'll be alright. I'll be back."

And with that, she lifted to her feet and slipped outside, leaving Link bound down to the cot, immobile, helpless, silent, and wondering just what sort of danger was lurking in the shadows of the Gerudo village… and when, exactly, it might come for him.


	5. Chapter 5

Another desert storm was brewing beyond the thin walls of the tent, and each time a faint rumble of distant thunder growled in the sky, Link seized the opportunity to throw his weight sideways and try to break his binds. The silk bands wrapping his ankles and securing his legs to the foot of Kotake's cot did not look especially sturdy, and as the storm drew closer to the village—its thunder increasing in volume and decreasing in time between intervals with every mighty roar—Link began to see the binds wear. When a particularly loud boom shook the earth just beyond the tent, Link heaved himself off the cot with everything he had, the silks _snapped_ crisply, and then he was free; tumbling down to roll to a halt atop the plush carpeting that lined the tent's interior.

Of course, like most of his bouts of 'freedom' had been since being captured by the Gerudo, he was only partially free. His hands were still bound at the wrists behind him, but Link wasted no time looking for an amends to that problem at once. He clambered to his feet and crossed the tent to Kotake's trunk, the broken silk bands around his ankles trailing behind him like streamers. When he reached it, he lowered back to a knee and twisted his body around to get his fingers under the thing's latch, popping it and throwing it back the best he could with his arms at such an odd angle. The lid rolled over on its hinges and rested against the foot of the cot, exposing the shadowed interior filled with whatever mad things Kotake might keep stored within.

Link turned back to narrow his eyes into the darkness, but found nothing useful on the surface level of its contents. There was some more silk, a few loose pairs of trousers, silver sandals, leather bracers, a stack of empty skins, a handle-

-Link halted the sweep of his eyes at once and squinted down at the thing. It _was_ a handle; just sitting there, poking out from between two blouses like a wooden finger angling up to point in his face, mocking his lack of freedom. Link worked himself around again and dipped backwards to lower his bound hands into the trunk. After a few moments, his grasping fingers found the handle and closed tightly around it, and Link stood to work the thing around to the side of his stomach for a better look.

_Finally,_ he thought upon glimpsing what resided at its head, _a spot of_ good _luck._

It was a little handheld mirror; an oval of reflective glass nestled between a bronze bezel littered with sapphire gems. And it was _exactly_ what he'd needed to find. His heartbeat climbing with the thrill of potential freedom ( _actual_ freedom this time), Link hurried back down beside the trunk and angled the mirror's face just above the jutting, sharp, corner of the wood. He lifted his eyes skywards, as if he could watch the stormy skies brewing beyond the opaque tent's ceiling, and waited. After only a handful of breaths, the thunder came growling across the desert again, and Link hammered the mirror down against the trunk's edge.

It shattered, filling the tent with the shrill shriek of cracking glass that was (Link hoped) somewhat masked by the thunder. When he turned back to glimpse his work, he saw the mirror was whole no longer, and a smattering of its pieces were splayed out at the base of the trunk. Many were too small to be of any use to him, but there was one jagged shard that had broken into a perfectly-sized triangle for use, and Link snatched it up, carefully, to start the arduous task of freeing himself.

He kept near to the tent flaps as he worked the shard back and forth over the outer layers of his wrist's binds, keeping a vigilant eye on the village. It was full night by then, though, and the only sounds drifting through the darkness of the tents and pavilions was the rumble of thunder creeping over the souther dunes, and the occasional whinnying and neighing from the nearby stables. Link shouldered his way out between the flaps to briefly scan the lane of tents up and down, but the intermittent torches only revealed so much in the tight proximity of their orange-red glow here and there, and so Link saw mostly shadows and little else.

Twice he cut his fingers on the glass, growing overly anxious to be free and pinching at the shard a bit too tightly for a better grip, but before long he felt a trickle of frayed ropes brush against his forearms, and shortly after _that_ the binds started to give some slack. He worked his glass, up and down, back and forth, careful, always careful, and soon enough the ropes gave up their hold on him, fell away to the carpet, and left Link one-hundred-percent free at last.

He stood straight, pulled his hands out before him, and stared at the things as if he'd never seen them before. His wrists were a little red, the skin chaffed from the tight ropes that had been encircling them for so long, but they were _his_ and they were free to act under his own willpower once again, and the feeling was wonderful.

After he'd pulled the gag from his mouth and discarded the damp thing atop Kotake's cot, Link rubbed at the soreness of his wrists and moved back to the tent flap to peek into the dark desert again. His plan had only been plotted out to his escape from his binds and no further, so for awhile, Link only stood, teetering on his heels, staring into the shadowed night, wondering if the Gerudo were light sleepers, or if they were still on the hunt for him, keeping watch from some high outposts on the village's perimeter. A light trickle of rain began to beat down on the camp, bringing the night alive with the soft chattering of raindrops on tents.

_The key,_ Link realized when his eyes found the stable's overhang poking up from the sea of tents at the village's outer rim. _I need that stable key to free Epona and be rid of this place entirely._ Of course, he knew at once there was only one person who would likely have that key he so desperately needed, and his eyes lifted to the wall of brown stone looming up over the village at its rear. Link, of course, couldn't be sure the Gerudo leader, Jolene, resided within the stone monstrosity at all, but when he glimpsed the twin glow of ensconced torches at the very top level, wedged between two thick walls and a narrow strip of window, he just _knew_ it had to be where she laid her head at night. _Jolene sees herself as a Queen of these women,_ he thought. _What better_ _'_ _royal_ _'_ _quarters than up there?_

"Mr. Link!?"

Link spun around. At the opposite end of the tent, Kotake had returned; her vibrant green eyes widened to saucers as they moved from Link to the cot, to his discarded binds and her open trunk, and finally back to him. Her mouth gaped.

Link took a step towards her.

"Come closer and I'll scream," she warned with a frown. "And we Gerudo have sharp ears. The whole village will come crashing down on top of you in _seconds_."

Link swallowed, unsure of how to proceed.

"You are a _bad_ captive, Mr. Link!" Kotake scolded him. "Everything I did for you and this is how you repay me? Trying to escape!? Bad slave! Bad! Now you lie down on your belly so I can put you back in your ropes!"

"I'm not doing that, Kotake," he explained calmly. "I have to escape this village. I _have_ to. Can't you understand that?"

"I said _down_!" She commanded, extending a finger to point at the carpet.

"No."

"Mr. Link…" She growled, her teeth barred, her cheeks reddening with anger. "I treated you nice. I fed you and brought you wine and kissed you! Now you obey me! You obey Kotake right _now_!"

Link knew the answer he had to give, and in what tone he had to give it to accomplish what he thought he might be able to accomplish. "No," he told her as casually as he could with a shrug of his shoulders, despite his heart drumming rapidly in his chest.

Kotake roared her frustration and pounced—exactly as Link was hoping she would—but when her 'surprise' attack reached him, Link had already prepared to counter it. He caught the girl's wild-swinging fists looking to batter down over his head and wrenched them aside to take her body's weight and momentum against his own. When he had her, he hooked her side and flipped her down to the cot, where she landed with a soft thud atop her hip. Link pressed down on her at once, flipping her over to her stomach and reaching around to clamp a hand over her mouth just as it was opening wide for a scream.

" _Mmmmmmph!_ " Kotake roared against his hand, squirming and writhing furiously beneath him.

"Shh!" Link pleaded, shifting his weight to counter the girl's attempts to escape him every time she bucked her hips or thrashed her legs. Kotake clearly had no intentions of being shushed, however, and went right on shouting and screaming muffled protests into his hand. Link squeezed her mouth closed tighter and held her in place beneath him till she settled, which took far longer than he'd hoped. "Calm down. It's over. I'm not your captive anymore."

He could feel Kotake's nose blasting warm air against his hand as she writhed again and muttered some unintelligible threat into his palm.

"I need the key to the stables, Kotake," Link told her. "I'm assuming Jolene has it. Am I right?"

Her reply was to try and bite his hand, but Link shifted it a bit and clamped her lips together again before she could.

"Please. Just nod your head if I'm right. Does Jolene have the stable key?"

Kotake was still a moment, seeming to refuse him answer more out of some stubborn desire to not admit defeat than to guard the truth. Link waited patiently, keeping her pinned down to the cot and listening intently for movement beyond the tent to see if the girl's noise had stirred any nearby Gerudo. After a long and silent moment, Kotake grunted, jerked one last time, and finally nodded her head.

"And Jolene… where does she reside in the village? Is she in that big stone building?"

Kotake hesitated again, but with no clear way to escape Link's pin, the fight was slowly being drained from her. After a—thankfully much shorter—pause, she nodded.

"Alright. Then that's where I'm headed." He glanced around the tent. "I'm going to have to tie you up now."

" _Mrf!_ " Kotake protested into his hand and did her best to shake her head. She launched into a long series of mumbles, her lips squirming and twisting beneath his palm with every attempted word.

Link frowned. Clearly, she wanted to say something, but could he risk her shouting? After a moment's debate, he sighed and told her, "Alright, listen: I'll let you talk, but if you scream…"

Kotake desperately shook her head, trying to crane her neck back around to fix him with her eyes. Slowly, Link freed her mouth, but kept his hand hovering only an inch or so from it, ready to clamp down in a moment's notice.

"If you leave me here all bound up like some tamed beast," Kotake began, her voice quiet but laced with an acidic tone, "it would be as good as killing me. When word reached Jolene that one her Gerudo had been defeated and humiliated by a _man_ …" She shook her head. "She'd take my life for it."

Link's frown deepened. "That's ridiculous."

"Maybe to a nice, proper, Hylian like you, Mr. Link, but we Gerudo are a prideful people, and Jolene is a cruel mistress."

"Then why do you all follow her?"

"The Gerudo follow strength," Kotake explained, "and there are few stronger than Jolene." She squirmed a bit. "Now you let me up, Mr. Link. You let me up right now!"

He took a moment to collect his thoughts. "I can take you with me."

Kotake's laugh was sardonic and brief. "Kidnap me you mean. And where would you take me, Mr. Link? Where would you stash me? You Hylians have always looked down on the Gerudo because of… _him_. No! I won't be your prisoner! I won't!"

She was growing loud again, and Link felt it was time to move. He looked behind him and found the gag he'd been wearing laying down near Kotake's knees. He snatched it up, shook it out long, and brought it to his other hand. Kotake's eyes found the muzzle when it neared, but by then it was too late, and when she opened her mouth to protest, Link wedged the knotted center between her teeth and brought the ends around to tie tightly under her fall of wavy, auburn, hair. He fetched two of the broken bands of silk as Kotake thrashed and mumbled beneath him and quickly wrenched her arms behind her back to bind at the wrists before moving down and tying up her bare ankles.

When he finished, he rose to look her over. Kotake writhed about on the cot, but the binds on her hands and feet were solid, and after a few moments of struggling, she lay defeated, glaring up at him, nostrils flaring, her hands balled to fists at the small of her back.

"Now I can leave you here, or I can take you with me. The choice is yours."

" _Grrmmm_ ," she growled into her gag.

"Alright. Then goodbye, Kotake," he said, turned, and peeled back the tent flap to head into the night.

" _Mmf!_ " She grunted after him.

He turned back. "Yes?"

The girl's eyes shifted from side to side. She chewed the knot of her gag. Her chest heaved in a greatly exaggerated sigh. She looked to him and, begrudgingly, offered a nod of her head.

"You want me to take you with me?"

She rolled her eyes, glared, nodded again.

He crossed to the cot and pointed a finger in her face. "If you start trying to get noisy under that gag, I'll leave you hogtied in the sands for either the Gerudo to find you, or a scorpion or some other desert creature. Understood?"

" _Ermf!_ " She grunted, her frustrated impatience showing in the red glow of her cheeks and the scowl wrinkling her brow.

Without further hesitation, Link leaned down, worked the girl's body up beside his head and neck, and hoisted her up as he stood. She fell to limply drape across his shoulder, her bound legs and feet dangling before him, her upper body and head swaying behind him as he turned. He carried her to the tent flaps, stole a quick peek outside to assure it was clear, and headed out.

The sky outside was a clear and inky black canvas, dappled only with a stray storm cloud here and there and a smattering of starlight. The rain had thankfully stayed at a light drizzle, though it was enough to turn the sands a bit slick underfoot. Link moved slow and cautious, breathing deep of the damp night air and enjoying the occasional gust of cool breeze, rolling down from the northern dunes that mounded up around the valley the Gerudo village was wedged in. Kotake kept quiet enough atop his shoulder as he carried her between tents, stopped, surveyed their surroundings, and moved on. She let out an occasional grunt or groan as his momentum jerked her about, but was otherwise silent. The camp, likewise, was eerily quiet. As Link moved from one shadowed nook to another, he saw nothing and no one, and it awakened a caution in him for some sort of trap.

The stables rose in a line of wooden logs nestled against the village wall, and Link took the long way around to get there; moving in the shadow of the large pavilion that had been erected near to it. When his feet left the sands and found the cool stone walkway that trimmed the stalls, he saw Epona's head turn and her big, dark, eyes found his immediately.

"Shhh, girl," he whispered, stepping slowly forward to inch along the line of stables.

Epona neighed and clopped her hooves, but did both relatively quietly, and when Link turned to see if she'd aroused any suspicious Gerudo their way, found nothing. He returned his eyes to his horse and smiled. "It's alright," he told her, reaching his free hand through the locked bars of her stable to brush at her mane. "You'll be out of there soon."

Epona lowered her head and closed her eyes and allowed Link to stroke at her mane.

His gaze lowered to the big round hole set in the barred door of her stable. He narrowed his eyes on it, then lifted them up higher to peer over the top of the village wall. The big stone building was looming in wait; the faint glow of torchlight still bathing the third floor in its orange warmth. _Somewhere up there is the key,_ he thought. _…_ _and Jolene._

Kotake shifted a bit on his shoulder, reminding him she was up there, and Link realized if he were going to infiltrate the Gerudo base, he'd need to stash her somewhere. His eyes scanned the immediate area and found the stable shed set a bit further down along the village wall. He reached for Epona's mane once more, offered a few parting words of comfort, and headed for the small wooden shack.

The shed door was unlocked, and when Link nudged it open, it creaked on rusted hinges all the way back to thud against the wall. He glanced around the village to see if the noise had stirred anyone, and after a few tense but uneventful moments, decided it hadn't and headed inside. The interior was stuffy and the quarters tight and confined, but that was just the sort of place Link was looking for. He carried Kotake to the very back of the room, laid her on her belly in the sands, and fetched a saddle strap from a dusty shelf beside them to bind her hands to her feet; hogtying her and assuring she wouldn't squirm off and cause him any trouble.

Kotake growled into her gag and jerked at her new bind, but Link simply laid a hand on her shoulder as he had on Epona's mane and told her, "Just lay there and be quiet, and you have my word I'll return for you when I retrieve that stable key."

Kotake squinted and balled her hands to fists, but made no attempt at a verbal reply.

Link nodded, headed back outside, and gently closed the shed door behind him; getting one last glimpse of moonlight painting a harsh, silver, streak across Kotake's indignant face before she was lost to the shadows and sealed up inside.

He turned to face the night and the Gerudo base. He had no sword, no shield, no true idea of what was awaiting him within, he'd had only an apple and a skin of wine in his belly in the last day's time, and his muscles were sore from misuse after being bound up so tightly and for so long at Jolene's hands. Yet he was not worried. In fact: he was oddly calm, and as he marched down the length of the village wall, hidden in shadow, eyes locked intrepidly on the mountain of stone awaiting him, Link was taken by a surge of excitement and hope.

For before long, he would be atop Epona again, riding with the desert wind in his hair, free from Jolene and her Gerudo girls once and for all, and it was with that stirring of hope he made for their base with.


	6. Chapter 6

There were sentries posted at the entranceway, two big brutish women with olive skin and plum silks and curved scimitars hanging from their hips in scabbards. They were still as stone, one hand resting casually on the hilt of their blades, the other laid atop the handle of a short whip protruding from their waistbands on the opposed side. Above their veils, their eyes were dark and cautious and alert, and when the desert winds came rolling down off the dunes, their ponytails swayed in the breeze, taking on the appearance of crimson sand snakes coiling around the backs of their heads.

Link watched them from the shadowed nook of the wall that ran the base's perimeter. They didn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, though, and it wasn't long before he realized he'd have to find another way inside. He slipped back around the wall's dull edge of stacked stone and flattened himself against it as he pressed downwards two dozen feet, to a place where the wall's top dipped a bit, worn by wind and weather, and pulled a large cask up to stand upon and climb over. He hoisted himself up high enough to peek over, made sure the area was clear, and jerked his legs up behind him. He leaped the wall and came down softly on the balls of his feet on the other side, sticking low to the sands and casting a wary eye back towards the sentries. They hadn't moved an inch, and Link wasted no time crossing the gap to the three-story tower of stone, passing in and out of the silver strips of moonlight that painted the path as he went.

There were big, carved, windows dotting the building's perimeter every few feet intermittently. When Link lifted on the tips of his toes, he could just peek inside and see dark halls and dark rooms and dark chambers, little else. There were no torches ensconced down on the ground level of the base, and so when Link jumped for the edge, found it, and pulled himself up to worm inside, he did so stealthily and bathed in shadow.

The interior was notably cooler, both the soft breeze wafting through the halls, and the hard, cold, stone underfoot. Link lifted to a crouch and squinted down either end of the hall he'd ended up in, looking for some hint of passage to carry him higher. The darkness, though, was near suffocating, and only drips of moonlight came here and there from a slitted window or a cracked wall. Link ruminated on the paths a moment, chose one, and began stalking his way froward, keeping low and pressed to the wall, ready in a moment's notice to lay himself flat and disappear.

The first hall ended, another began. It was just as long and just as dark, and Link traveled it with just as much caution. He could hear faint noises stirring from beyond the thick walls of the base as he moved; wind scraping along the outside, an occasional cough or mutter from a Gerudo, the now-fading distant rumble of the passing storm. Otherwise: silence. He padded to the end of the second hall, where a twist took him around a long bend and into a third.

At the end of that, he found the coil of serpentine stairs tunneling up around the corner of the base he'd been marched down the previous day. They were crooked, haggard, things, and he spotted a beady-eyed rat scuttling from place to place at their foot. He stepped over it, took the waist-high barrier of stone in hand, and slowly made his ascent, keeping his eyes held up on the next floor as he went.

It was there he found his first spot of trouble. After a small, windowless, room, he came upon a long chamber, lit by dual torches on either end, that stretched nearly the entire length of the base, and was divided at its center only by a ridge of stone poking up from the floor and hanging down from the ceiling. Marching through it with disciplined strides of their sandaled feet were two Gerudo in pale yellow masks. They clutched six-foot-tall spears in hand, and—like the two at the entranceway—Link could see the leather-banded handles of whips poking out of their waistbands. He flattened himself to the edge of the doorway and watched them march, but there was little to see: they did not break stride, did not talk, did not do a thing, really, besides patrol and patrol some more. That was not good. He searched briefly for some other path that could perhaps lead around the two, but found none. The only way forward, it seemed… was through them.

With no other choice, he stepped into the room. If they shouted to alert the others, he'd simply make a dash for the opposite end and figure out someway to get the stable key from Jolene on the third floor as quickly as he could.

But when one of the guards saw him, her eyes narrowing maliciously over her long pointed nose and yellow mask, she did not shout or yell or call for aid, only turned back to her twin, reached for the woman's arm, and tapped. The other Gerudo looked backed casually, found Link standing before them at the end of the room, and turned to join her sister. Link looked between the two of them, uncertain of what they meant to do. Then, they looked to one another, nodded, and began spreading out on his flanks, spears flattened out defensively before their chests.

_So it_ _'_ _s combat they want,_ Link mused, watching their slow approach. He supposed it made sense. If they could defeat and capture him on their own, he'd make quite the prize to Jolene when they returned him to her in ropes or chains. Unarmed and clad only in his breeches, he bent his knees a bit and paced forward to meet them.

The women spread wider on his flanks as they approached so that each was nearly pressed to the walls, and Link could no longer keep his eyes on both of them. They stepped, foot over foot, cautiously pressing in on either of his sides. Link looked from Gerudo to Gerudo, ready to act in a moment's notice. The one on his right halted her approach and looked to her twin. Some tacit conversation passed in their eyes, then she was setting her spear aside and reaching for the whip instead. It came rolling out of its coil in a flash, her bronze wrist snapping so that it lashed as the air and filled the chamber with a sharp _crack._ The spear-wielding Gerudo chuckled beneath her mask and quietly said, "The man-slave needs punishing, Marya. Whip him."

The whip came again, its tip cracking against the stone just beside Link's foot. He shifted back to avoid the blow-

-and the other women charged. Link got turned around enough to intercept some of her force, but not enough. Her shoulder lowered and found his ribs, and the two of them went spilling to the floor. As soon as they collided with the stone, the woman came crawling up over him, her strong hands gripping hard at his flesh as she came, and reached for his face. Link craned his neck to avoid her grasping fingers, spun the two of them sideways, and mounted her waist. He made to pin her arms down and wrestle the spear from her hold, but his vision filled with the whip-bearing Gerudo making a charge of her own. He lifted his eyes just in time to see the whip lashing out for his face. He threw his weight backwards, rolling just out of the attack's range and off the fallen Gerudo's legs.

He sprung to his feet.

The whipper helped the spearer up and they faced him again, frustration darkening what features were visible of their faces. They shared a glance, tightened their fists around their respective weapons, and began slowly pressing in on him once again. Link looked between them, running his fingers together, eager to make a move. The spear-woman feigned a jab, and when Link reacted, the whip-woman cracked her lash down across his back. The braided thong bit hard at his flesh and Link winced and arched his back to stave off the pain. The women, however, took the brief moment of weakness to their advantage, both of them rushing forward to flood his position. Link tried to step back and away, but his wrist was snatched, then his other, then his arms, then the two women were hugging him between them so tightly he could barely breath.

The whip's lash came down around his neck and squeezed as one of the women worked her way around behind him, twisting his wrist and wrenching his arm back with her. The other pinned his chest against her own and made to still his legs and feet by stomping on them. " _Man_ - _slave_!" one of them (Link could no longer be sure which) hissed contemptuously and pulled at his hair. Their hands were firm and strong and gripped him everywhere he could be gripped. Link writhed and jerked to free himself, but when he began to overpower them, something struck him hard between the legs, and that took the fight out of him for a time.

They wrestled him down to the floor and pinned him beneath their weight, one sitting atop his chest, the other atop his ankles and calves. "We need to bind him!"

Link had been bound enough, and the thought of being a helpless captive to the Gerudo again, roped and gagged, was enough to awaken a desperate anger in him. With it came strength, and with one mighty heave, he threw the Gerudo woman off his chest, sat up, and shoved the other from his legs. They scrambled on the floor, clambered up to their feet, and charged him to wrangle him back down. Link got his feet under him, stood, watched their approach, waited till they were _just_ about to leap for him, and-

-threw himself backwards. The Gerudo's momentum sent them clashing into one another instead in the vacant spot where he'd been standing only moment earlier, their foreheads meeting one another with a hard _smack_ that filled the chamber, echoing off the walls. Then their eyes rolled back and they fell to the ground beside one another, unconscious.

Link stood over them a moment, panting a bit to catch his breath. He crouched and checked on them to make sure they were alright, and when he discovered they were, dragged them in turn to the corner of the room and bound them the best he could back-to-back with the long leather lash of the Gerudo whip. When that was finished, he returned to the spot of their scuffle and retrieved the long spear the guard had wielded so effortlessly against him. He hoisted the thing to his chest, bouncing it around a bit in his fingers to get a feel for its weight and balance. The tip was a grafted-on piece of steel, sharpened to a fine point. Link lowered it to the floor, laid his food just at its end, and snapped the thing off at once. He would use the spear to defend himself if need be, but would not risk hurting either himself or the Gerudo any more than necessary. As cruel as the women had been to him, he would not bring himself to their level and return such cruelty.

He left the unconscious women and their chamber, gratefully, behind, finding another twist of stone stairs at the end of the long hall in an adjacent room, which he took immediately. They wound their way up in a long coil and deposited him into another room, unlit, and ending in a big barred door with a locked handle. Link went to it and, quietly, tested the thing, but it would not budge; he was locked out from proceeding any further.

He spun back and surveyed the room. It was unfurnished, and only the dark arch that led back to the stairs and a solitary window, narrow and high, was set against the near wall, allowing a slit of cool moonlight to lay a silver stripe on the floor. Link went to it. He ran his hand along the jagged line of its jamb, eyeing the gap and figuring it was just wide enough for him to sip between. He laid a foot on the sill and climbed up and in, shifting sideways to sidle himself closer to the edge, and to the outer night waiting beyond.

The window ended, and the desert began. Standing at its edge, Link could see the entirety of the Gerudo camp sprawled out in its sea of brown tents and lavish carpets and big, silk, pavilions. He could see the stables where Epona was waiting and the little shed where he'd stashed Kotake. He saw the undulating dunes rolling around the valley in long, gold-brown, waves. And he saw the night sky, looming up over the desert in a vast black stretch, dappled with the shining white pinpoints of distant stars.

He looked down to where his toes were hanging over the window's edge and saw a thin ridge protruding from the base's outer wall. Link leaned out a bit to survey it and saw it was just what he needed. The ridge worked its way all the way down the length of the room's exterior before ending abruptly at the foot of another window's base, long and narrow like the one he stood in then, and knew that would be the only way forward. He pulled a breath to still his nerves, glanced briefly out into the desert, and slipped around the window's edge to lay his feet sideways on the ridge and flatten his belly to the wall, his face turned so that his cheek was pressed almost completely to the stone as he tucked the broken spear into the band of his breeches at his back.

It was like that he moved forward, slowly, down the length of the wall, keeping his hands brushing softly against the stone to guide him, his steps light on the balls of his feet, and his eyes narrowed intently on his destination. If they strayed and glimpsed the plummet he might take if he misstepped and fell… his head might spin with disorientation, and then he'd _really_ be in trouble.

When his fingers found the new window's jamb and he pulled his feet up and into its base, he let out the long breath that he'd, apparently, been holding for the duration of the risky trip, and felt the tension slip from his posture like a heavy suit of armor. He shuffled through the window and into the locked-off room…

…and found a Gerudo guard with her back turned to him immediately, standing just below the window's sill. Link had no time to think, no time to plan, only time to act. He hopped to the floor, closed in tight on her, reached one hand around to clamp her mouth and keep her quiet, and set the other down in a focused pinch on the tender spot where her slim neck met her shoulder. It was an old technique, and one he was not quite as adept at as he would have liked, but it worked all the same. The woman's back stiffened, she grunted against his hand, but then she went abruptly limp and fell unconscious. Link caught her, taking her under the arms and guiding her gently to the floor before laying her on her side.

"… _you!?_ "

Link's head jerked up. Across the narrow room, at the very back in a wash of shadows, a Gerudo was locked up in chains. She was bound the same way he'd been in his brief stay in the tower: her hands strung up in manacles high above her head, stretched so far she could only barely wobble on the tips of her toes to keep balance. He rose and darted to her to silence her before she could alert any others, and when he'd crossed the gap and gotten a hold of her mouth under his palm, the wide-set almond eyes and sharp cheekbones and auburn ponytail revealed the woman to be the Gerudo who'd come to his cell and… _toyed_ with him his first night in captivity.

"Aveil," he muttered quietly.

The Gerudo's eyes narrowed, though her expression was hard to read in the darkness of the cell and with her lower face hidden beneath his hand. He held her eyes a moment before glancing around the rest of the room. It was as barren as the rest of the tower, and only the sleeping guard accompanied them. Two barred and locked doors flanked the sides, nothing else. When he returned his eyes to Aveil's, the question arose: _Why is she locked up?._ He wanted to ask her that very question, but didn't trust the woman enough to unleash her mouth. He could feel her lips squirming about beneath his hand, but she was keeping quiet as she stared at him.

"If I release your mouth…"

Aveil nodded immediately, one step ahead of his proposition.

Link eyed her shrewdly a moment before sighing and slowly removing the hand silencing her.

"You don't have to kill me," Aveil whispered as soon as she could, a tense urgency in her tone. " _Please_."

"Kill you? I'm not here to kill you."

Her brow wrinkled, as if his claim was absurd. "…then what are you going to do with me?"

Link looked up at her hands, back to the sleeping guard, and finally into her eyes. "I'll free you if you swear you won't cause me anymore trouble."

Her frown deepened. "…what game is this?"

"No game."

"But… you are a man."

"I am."

"And as a man, you have the savage, violent, heart of a beast… Jolene says the only thing your kind desires is war and women," her look grew apprehensive, "…and sometimes both at the same time."

Link frowned. "I'm sure Jolene does say that." He nodded back to the sleeping guard. "Does she have the key to free you?"

Aveil hesitated, as if suspecting some trap.

Link sighed. "Listen, I'm not going to hurt you. I don't know why you're locked up in here like this, but if you help me, I will gladly free you and we can _both_ be rid of this place. Alright?"

"You lie," Aveil whispered, trying to step away from him but ending up only teetering on the tips of her toes and swinging a bit in her chains. "You're playing some cruel game like I played with you, and when you've had your fun, you're going to kill me."

Now they were going in circles, and there was no time to waste, and so Link shook his head and turned back to the guard. He lowered himself to a knee and patted down her trousers and waistband till he felt a hard circle at her hip. He fished it out: an iron ring with a half-dozen keys jingling from its rim. Link smiled, nodded, and returned to Aveil. "Are one of these the stable key?"

She recoiled from him again fearfully before hesitatingly offering a shake of her head. "…no."

"Are you lying?"

"Jolene has the stable key. Only Jo. She's no fool."

Link nodded. "I'm going to remove your chains now. Please, Aveil, don't fight me. My name is Link, alright? I didn't ask to get caught up in any of this. It was _you_ all who bound me, gagged me, _kidnapped_ me, not the other way around. Help me. Help me, and you have my word I'll help you as much as I can in return." He waited for some sort of reply. When one did not come, he simply sighed and reached up to loose her manacled wrists.

They came free after plugging the third key on the ring inside the lock, and all at once, Aveil came sagging down to fall into his arms. He took her, she was thinner than most of the other Gerudo and light as a feather, but when her weight came against him and he reached for her back, she winced and sucked air through grit teeth. Link frowned, confused, and craned his neck over her shoulder to see what had happened. There, running up and down here mostly-bare back were dark red stripes.

"You've been whipped?"

Aveil was still limp in his arms. "…yes."

"Why?"

"…for insubordination… and for being a whore…"

Link grimaced. He was despising this Jolene woman more and more. "Can you walk?"

She hesitated before replying, "…no."

Her voice was so small and fragile then, Link could hardly believe it was the same woman speaking to him that had come to his cell that first night of his captivity. The confident, cruel, thing she'd been had all but vanished, like a poorly upheld facade, and only a frightened, wounded, woman remained where the warrior had been. Link took her weight against him, scooped his arm under her knees, and lifted her up to his chest.

"What are you doing with me?" She asked, staring fearfully up at him from her position cradled in his arms.

"Rescuing you."

That mistrustful look wrinkled her comely features again. "But… _why_?"

Link considered his words a moment before answering, "Jolene did not lie to you entirely, Aveil. There _are_ men who are savage beasts who want nothing more than to conquer other men in battle and women in the bedroom." He held her eyes. "But not all men."

She stared at him for a long bout of silence then before asking, "Is your name really Link?"

"Yes."

"…then you have my thanks, Link."

He nodded. "Is that next room Jolene's?"

"Yes, but she is not alone. She sleeps with her crimson guard."

"The stable key?"

"It will be close to her, but _where_ exactly, I cannot say."

"Alright. And what do I do with you?"

Aveil stared. "You've… captured me." She lowered her eyes and shifted a bit awkwardly in his arms. "…by Gerudo law, I am yours."

He nearly told her how foolish that was, that she was free and that no one should ever 'belong' to another, but held his tongue, and instead said, "Alright. Then you have to do what I say?"

Again, Aveil shifted a bit, a strange look coming across her face that seemed both excited and afraid. "Yes."

"Then keep quiet. I'm going to leave you by the door while I get that stable key. Only call out if you see someone coming. Understand?"

She nodded, but when he made to move and set his plan into action, her hand reached for his face and pulled his eyes back to hers. "Since I'm yours now, you can command me to do what you want." She swallowed, casting her look briefly down across his bare chest before returning it to his eyes. "If you told me to kiss you… I would have to obey."

"I'm _telling_ you to be quiet for now. That's all."

Aveil nodded, but the disappointment was evident in her eyes.

Link ignored it. He had to: there was work to be done. He carried Aveil to the barred door leading deeper into the tower's center, lowered her to the floor, and carefully propped her up against the wall, taking his time to ensure her wounded back did not scrape the stone or come against it too roughly. Aveil, again, looked upon him with a strange expression as he tended to her, and when he made to lift himself away, her hands came up weakly for his chest again, as if to pull him in for a kiss, but Link acted as if he hadn't seen the gesture, and simply stood and moved for the door.

He got the key right on the second one he tried, and just like that the iron door was swinging back on its hinges to clear the way forward. Link stepped slowly inside, narrowing his eyes into the shadowed strips of darkness that lay heavy over the room between the windows. Where the rest of the tower had been drab and unfurnished, here it was decorated with lavish, plush, carpets from end to end, and golden trinkets and swords inlaid with gems and a colorful assortment of silk drapes and sheets hung from the walls. And in the center of it all, a massive bed was sprawled out against the room's rear. As Link approached, he could see bare legs and feet poking out from blankets, arms and hands with rings on the fingers swinging from the edges, and closer still he could see mounds of bare breasts rolling in shadow near the bed's top, like those undulating dunes of desert sand outside.

He moved closer, counting off at least three Gerudo atop the mattress as he neared. Two of them had crimson bands of silks around their throats, and the third, sandwiched between them with her arms wrapped around their shoulders, had the long, hooked, nose that was Jolene's most distinguishing feature.

Beside the bed, a little wooden table stood with an unlit lantern atop its lacquered surface, and a row of scabbards and belts leaned up against its side. Link stalked towards the thing, keeping one eye carefully trained on the trio of sleeping women beside it. As soon as he reached the table, he rummaged around its edges and its top, searching for the stable key, but when he found nothing, and was preparing to move to the other side of the bed, something shining in a strip of moonlight caught his eye.

There, lying between the twin mounds of Jolene's bare breasts, the stable key hung from a little silver chain around her neck. _Of course it does,_ Link thought bitterly. _She knew I would never escape the desert without horse. She knew I would have to return for that key._ He watched the thing rise and fall with her breath, wondering if he could remove it without disturbing her or her two paramours resting in her arms.

Sound came at his rear. Link spun, alert, made to grab the spear he'd tucked into his waistband-

-then the women tackled him. He saw only a flash of crimson silks and dark hair before they were atop him, spearing him in the belly and chest and taking hold of his arms as they went barreling backwards. A din of chaos erupted in the chamber then. Both Link and his surprise attackers went splaying out onto the bed, rousing and waking the sleeping Gerudo already atop it. He heard Jolene's strident voice cutting over all the others shouts, though, and before long, the sleeping Gerudo had recovered, and even more hands were adding their numbers to the task of restraining him. Link's legs got tangled up in the bed's covers, making it nearly impossible to roll free or make a run for it, and there were Gerudo women everywhere around him by then anyway, toppling over him, grabbing for his wrists and arms and neck, some of them bare-chested, their breasts swinging wildly above him in the shadows of the night. Someone slipped and fell from the bed. Someone else cursed. Someone threw her weight atop him to pin him down and ended up banging her head off another's knee. It was utter chaos, but then one, tall, figure rose above all the others and pounced for him.

Jolene came down on Link's chest and unsheathed a dagger from some clandestine scabbard beneath her trousers. She pressed the blade to his throat and barred her teeth. " _Don_ _'_ _t move_!"

The blade bit softly at his skin. Link stopped moving.

The victory was in Jolene's eyes long before the smirk rose up her face. "Our bothersome prisoner returns to us, girls," she said with a bark of sardonic laughter. "And is our prisoner once again."

Link glared up at the woman.

Jolene's smirk only broadened. "You know the routine, ladies. Bind him and gag his mouth."

They did. With Link pinned beneath Jolene and her dagger to his throat, there was little he could do to resist as the women first bound his feet up at the ankles, then his knees, then all worked together to secure him and roll him over when Jolene moved aside and get his hands bound up tight behind his back. They finished subduing him by looping a big, thick, cloth around his mouth and tying it firmly in place.

When he was rolled over on the bed to lie on his back once more, it was Aveil whose eyes he found first as she loomed him. _Thanks for the warning,_ he thought bitterly.

"Oh, it was terrible, Jo," Aveil suddenly sobbed, turning on the Gerudo leader with her hands clasped at her chest. "You were right about… about _everything_! This man told me he was going to kidnap me and beat me and rape me for what we did to him! He… frightened me so dearly, I was afraid to scream when he took me out of my chains." She sobbed again and stepped towards Jolene. "I'm so sorry, Jo."

Jolene draped a long arm over the woman's shoulder and pulled her against her body. " _Shhh_. It's alright now, Aveil. Now you've learned your lesson, haven't you? This is man's nature. He is a beast. A terrible and cruel beast."

"Yes," Aveil croaked, hugging herself tight to Jolene. "Man is what you say. Vile and disgusting and wicked."

"Now you understand why you had to be whipped, don't you?"

"Yes, Jo. To learn. To see the truth. You are wise."

Jolene kissed Aveil's brow. "Yes. I am."

Link had never been so disgusted. He glared at the two of them, angry with Jolene, but outright _furious_ with Aveil and her lies. But when Jolene turned a bit so that Aveil's eyes came revealed above her leader's shoulder, he thought he saw something there. Some… strange look Aveil tried passing to him…

But then Jolene released her and it was gone; only the lying, sobbing, girl remaining beside the Gerudo leader.

"Kotake's missing," one of the new crimson guards spoke into the silence.

Jolene turned a malicious look on Link. "Our monstrous captive here probably murdered her and hid her body away."

"Should I remove his gag so we can question him?"

"No," Jolene answered curtly. "Leave that to me. I'll interrogate our prisoner here." She smiled a venomous smile.

Aveil glanced at her leader, but when Jolene looked her way, dropped her eyes and went back to quietly sobbing.

Jolene stepped closer to Link, so that she was towering over him. She cocked her head and planted her hands on her hips. "I should have broken you the day we captured you and brought you here, prisoner. It is not a mistake I intend to make again." She faced the five other Gerudo in the room and said, "Leave us."

And one by one, they did.

Aveil went last, her look lingering on Link just a bit longer than necessary before she turned and traipsed off behind the crimson guard.

When they were alone, Jolene lifted her leg and planted a bare foot atop Link's chest, pushing him down hard against the mattress. "You made a mistake coming back here, prisoner," she growled, leaning to the wall beside the bed to fetch a long leather whip from a mantle. "You would have been better off wandering through the desert. There might've been some mercy out there. But in here?" She smirked, uncoiled the whip, leaned hard onto his chest. "You will receive _none_."


	7. Chapter 7

His new cell was as dark as a desert sky at night. It was little more than a stone box set deep, deep, in the earth beneath the sands; the last, little, room at the end of a long twisting set of stairs that he'd been carried down to from the Gerudo tower's first floor. It would be an insult to basement's to call this new place he was being held captive in a basement, and so Link had come to think of it as a tomb. It was a dark, cramped, tomb, and with every passing moment he spent inside the thing, he felt his hopes of ever seeing the world beyond it fade and falter, until his spirits ran as black as the four tight walls encasing him.

And he hurt; oh, he hurt. Jolene had lashed his chest and back after they'd caught and secured him up in her chambers. She'd uncoiled her whip and turned him about from side to side atop her mattress to snap the braided thong against his bare flesh again and again, each strike coming down with barbed teeth to snap at him, and though she'd never whipped him hard enough to break his skin and bloody her sheets, she was sure to leave big red welts in stripes across every spot of flesh she could. And she had laughed while doing it. Not a joyous laugh, nor truly even a cruel one; just a long series of harsh cackles that assured him she was in absolute control, and he was nothing, no one, powerless.

Now he was here, down in the darkest hole the desert might have. His hands and feet were stretched out as far as they could go, fasted with heavy coils of hempen rope around the wrist and ankle, and secured tightly to the four posts of the thin, stiff, cot they'd laid him atop. When he moved even in the slightest to tug at his binds or try to shift his weight a bit to find a more comfortable position, his wounded back screamed in protest, the swollen lines of his welts catching fire and pleading with him to be still. He obeyed that command easy enough after the first few times, and resolved to lying still and letting himself heal. _If_ , of course, Jolene allowed such healing at all before she hauled him back upstairs for another lashing.

She hadn't spoken to him at all while she was whipping him up and down, but she _had_ spoken just before her crimson guards had lugged him off to be stashed away down in this new cell. She'd said, "Now I'll bury you beneath the sands, prisoner. Cast your thoughts of freedom aside, for I won't make the same mistake of giving you such lenient captivity again. You're going underground. Maybe I'll bring you back up someday. Or maybe I won't." She'd smiled then, a thin, ugly, thing spreading beneath her big hooked nose. "You can ruminate on that while you're lying alone in the darkness of your own misery."

Link balled his hands to fists, but the heavy coils of rope just below his wrists robbed the gesture of any strength he meant to derive from it. He didn't want to let Jolene's word play in his mind. That would be letting her win. But it wasn't easy. In the dark of his cell, there was not even any sound to accompany his isolation. He was too deep below the surface to hear the winds or the rains or the clasps of distant thunder; too deep to hear even the other Gerudo above, pacing the halls of the tower as he knew they would be. It was only silence beside him, a thick and oppressive silence, so heavily laid around him he felt at times as if he were drowning in it. He thought of Epona and of riding through the dips and peeks of Hyrule's great, green, valleys. He thought, briefly, of the pretty princess he'd glimpsed a few fortunate times in Hyrule's castle. He thought of home, of the forest, of fishing and friends. But in the end, every one of his thoughts turned to rot, for all those things were a thousand leagues away from the darkness of his cell, and he was utterly and truly alone.

He took the thick gag the Gerudo had affixed around his mouth between his teeth and grunted, if nothing else just to hear a bit of sound and stave off that heavy silence. He tugged again at his hands and feet, but the ropes were indifferent to his desperation. They held him tightly in place, keeping him right where he was, reminding him of his total defeat and complete helplessness.

It was like that he lay for a long time, though without any bit of sunlight to help mark its passing, _time_ was not something he had a firm grasp on. But at some point, she came.

First he heard the soft scraping of slippered feet moving over stone. In the dark, it had sounded a bit like a snake, hissing and ready to strike, and Link was reminded again of how some of the Gerudo women's hair moved when the wind beckoned; auburn ponytails turning to crimson vipers. But then the light began seeping back into the world, faintly at first, then all at once in a great ball of orange flame. Link squinted outside the barred door of his cell and saw her descending the last bit of stairs to him, her slippered feet, her baggy trousers, her bare midriff, her loose-fit blouse that today was a pretty shade of sapphire blue. Then Aveil's half-masked face came, high-cheekboned and sharp featured, the pretty wells of her almond eyes glistening against her torchlight. She made her way to his cell door, plugged it with a key, then opened it only wide enough to slip her slim frame through before softly pressing it shut behind her once more.

The torch she carried, at first, was blinding to Link's light-deprived eyes, and he had to keep them closed to slits until they adjusted. By the time they had, Aveil had worked the thing into a sconce beside the cell door, and had turned to stand over his cot, her dark eyes sweeping a deep stare over him from head to toe and back. Anger coursed beneath his skin. The last time he'd seen _her_ , she'd been lying through her teeth to Jolene about him to save her own skin. Now, though, as he looked upon that same skin, bronze and smooth and soft-looking, it was hard to maintain the anger: she was another person, at least, and the quiet crackle of the torch flames had swallowed up the pool of silence he'd been drowning in.

After a long moment, their eyes locked on one another's the whole time, Aveil softly perched herself beside Link on the bed and looked at his bare chest as she removed the sapphire mask from her lower face. "I am… sorry this has happened to you."

Link frowned. With his gag in, there was little else he could do. He grunted in attempt to communicate that notion.

"There is not much to say to one another, and I would be in grave danger if I were caught down here," Aveil explained, her brow wrinkling sympathetically, "so you will forgive me if I choose to keep your gag in place for the duration of my… visit."

Link narrowed his eyes on the woman's and shook his head.

"They found Kotake," Aveil went on, ignoring his reproachful look. "You stashed her away quite well in the stable shed, but Jolene's guard found her all the same. After they freed her, she swore up and down that you had attacked her in the night, slipped into her tent, overcome her, threatened her with violence, and even slapped her and kicked her to tame her before you bound her up." Aveil looked to her hands and fidgeted with them. "But I knew her words rang false. The same as mine did. Both of us… we were only trying to save ourselves from Jolene's wrath in our confessions." She lifted her eyes back to Links and leaned a bit closer to him. "But I tracked her down after her interrogation was over. I tracked her down and got the truth from her. Kotake is, admittedly, young and reckless, but she is not a very good liar. I pressed her till I had the truth.

"You were kind to her. As you were to me. She admitted that even after you'd overpowered her and had her beneath you and at your whims… still, you were gentle with her and careful with your bindings so as not to harm her. And you offered her what you offered me. To take us away from here. To… to rescue us from Jolene."

Link fidgeted a bit himself, but the ropes tight hold were quick to put an end to that.

Aveil reached a hand to his face and softly cupped his chin and cheek. "It must be true then. You are either Hyrule's greatest liar… or you are a good man, and that is something Jolene has sworn up and down to everyone who would listen is not possible." She swallowed as her eyes moved from his face to his chest to his breeches and back. "I cannot rescue you from this cell right now, Link of Hyrule," she explained. "…but I _can_ make you forget you're here… at least for a little while."

Now Link thought he understood the true reason she'd left his gag in place. If he could not speak he could not protest.

Aveil rose from the bed, stepped back a few paces till she was beside the torch and the orange glow was dancing prettily against her bronze skin, and angled her arms back around her chest. A moment later, her silks fell away, and the soft breasts within came free, exposed and bare. Where Kotake's had been small and perky, Aveil's were full and round, the breasts of a woman. Her nipples were little dark circles at their tips, standing just a bit erect. The sight of it alone was enough to send a stir between Link's legs. Then Aveil pried the sandals from her feet in turn till she was standing barefoot and just a bit shorter than she'd been atop the cold stone of his cell. Her hands moved to her waistband and flipped aside the buckles, her thumbs tucked inside. A moment later, she was wiggling her hips as she tugged her trousers down around her ankles. When they pooled there in a white pile, she lifted a foot to kick them aside, and then Aveil stood before him, utterly and completely naked. She was fit and thin, but curved where a woman should be. Both her breasts and her hips were rounded and looked soft and eager to be touched. Between her legs, a finely-groomed strip of pubic hair led down… down…

Link's erection came as hard as stone, making his breeches somehow even more uncomfortable than the fresh wounds still wrapping his back and torso. He closed his eyes and pulled a breath, but Aveil had already worked her desire into his mind's eye, and all he saw in the dark was her naked figure, beckoning him close for a kiss. When he opened his eyes again, she'd moved closer to seat herself beside his waist. Her hand moved from the string of his breeches.

" _Mmm_ ," Link groaned into the gag, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was trying to communicate then. He _wanted_ the breeches removed. The tightness of them had grown unbearable.

" _Shhhhh_ ," Aveil hushed him and worked her slender fingers around the string of his breeches till it was coiled before yanking the thing away entirely. Link practically came bursting out of his cloth prison, standing straight up out of the line of his breeches at full erection. Aveil's almond eyes held on his manhood briefly before floating back to his own eyes. A smile came across her face, turning her pretty features prettier and forcing Link to desire after her that much more.

She came crawling up the edge of the bed, her breasts swinging and swaying beneath her with every slow, careful, movement she made. When she was beside him, she folded her knees up beside his chest and sat herself up against him. She lowered her head to his chest, her ponytail coming falling over her shoulder to gently tickle at his bare flesh before her lips found him. They were such warm and soft things, Link could only close his eyes and groan against the gag as she kissed, first at his nipples and the sensitive skin around them, then all over, carefully dappling his bare flesh with her kisses between the red welts Jolene had left. Her hands pressed tenderly against his sides and began rubbing and groping at him as she kissed her way up his chest, his collarbone, his neck. He opened his eyes and, briefly, the two stared in at one another in silence. Then Aveil dug her fingers beneath his gag and pried it out from between his teeth. The moment it was gone, though, she covered his mouth was something new: her own. Their lips met and Link instantly thought, _She tastes as sweet as a peach_ , then her tongue was coming, and Link met it with his own.

They stayed like that awhile; Aveil with her hands in his hair, her lips against his own, and her bare breasts pushed up against his chest, the nipples like little stiff dots poking against him when she pressed hard enough; Link with his eyes closed and his heart thumping and his cock throbbing and eager. When Aveil finally pulled away, he instinctively leaned forward to find her lips again and kiss, but his ropes kept him pinned down against the bed, and he could only watch helplessly as those enchanted lips of hers moved further and further away.

" _Aveil,_ " he whispered.

" _Shhh,_ _"_ she shushed, reached for his gag, and quickly silenced him with it again. " _You must be quiet, Link. I will take care of you now._ "

" _Mmmph,_ " Link grunted, gagged and helpless to utter even a single word once more.

Aveil turned herself around, and Link stared at the wonderful, smooth, curves of her ass and thighs as the torchlight flickered against them. Then she was crawling over him, her soft skin brushing against his own and sending eager tingles of sensation through his body with every move. She got herself turned around and to his other side. Her head lowered. Her lips came warm and moist against his abdomen. He felt her tongue slip out to give him a little lick. She moved further down the bed and her hands found his thighs, squeezing and groping and teasing as her kisses ran a trail down further towards the throbbing, eager, mast lifting up from between his legs. Then she was kissing that too, and Link could only press his head back against the cot and bite the gag in his mouth as pleasure overtook him.

Aveil crawled down between his outstretched legs and lowered herself between his knees. Her fingers, slender and gentle, cupped his scrotum and the base of his shaft. Link lifted his head just enough to see Aveil flash a quick grin up towards his face, then the woman was opening her mouth wide, her lips full and pretty and warm and wonderful, and took his cock inside her.

" _Grrrmmm,_ " Link moaned against his gag, squeezing his eyes shut once again.

Aveil's mouth was the warmest place he could imagine in that moment, and when her tongue came to slide against the bottom of his cock, up its entire length, then flick and tease at his head before repeating the whole process, Link _did_ forget he was in captivity. He forgot he was bound, forgot he was gagged, forgot just about everything in the world. He could only think of Aveil and her almond eyes and her breasts and her mouth; oh, her mouth. It was wrapped so tightly around him then, he had to squeeze his hands to fists to stop himself from spilling his seed.

Aveil removed him from her mouth with a kiss at the very tip of his cock and whispered, " _Do you want to finish in my mouth or between my legs?_ _"_

He wanted her on top of him, with her breasts looming up where he could see them, and that little strip of pubic hair he'd glimpsed earlier leading down and adjoining them as one between the legs. Of course, the gag prevented him from saying any of that, but whatever Aveil saw in his eyes, she must've understood. She nodded, sat beside him a moment (presumably to let him cool off a bit) then crawled herself back up over his thighs to straddle his waist. He watched her breasts sway as she moved. Aveil smiled again, reached down to take his cock in her hand, then carefully worked him up inside her.

Link had been wrong when he thought Aveil's mouth was the warmest, tightest, place he could imagine. She had found him a place much warmer and much tighter. She slid herself down to take him deep inside her, lowering so far that Link felt her bare ass press against his thighs. Then she came lifting up again, her back arching, her breasts coming full and heaving with a deep breath. Link moaned against his gag again and felt his own hips buck a bit on their own, wanting to enter her as deep as they could. Aveil herself, by then, was beginning to pant a bit heavier, and after a few more bouts of up and down and up and down, their skin growing slick with sweat and sliding against each other with every thrust, she threw her head back and began to grope at her own breasts, pinching and tweaking at her nipples. Link watched, using every bit of willpower he had to keep his seed from spilling, but when Aveil moaned and ran a hand through her hair and reached her other down to claw fingers of passion across his belly, Link could hold back no longer. The muscles of his legs turned to knots as he thrust himself up as high as he could and was overtaken at once with a thousand pleasurable waves all coming for his cock and groin at once. They _were_ truly one then for the moment, for Aveil was allowing herself a few quiet whimpers and moans as she tossed her head back and gaped her mouth and closed her eyes and came and came and came.

* * *

After some time, either a moment or an eternity, Aveil collapsed beside him on the bed and the two laid like that, side by side, for a long time; the cell filling with the echoes of their panting breaths returning the wind to them.

Eventually, Aveil leaned over and kissed him a few times on the brow, the cheek, and what she could find of his lips around the gag. "I knew it," she whispered. "I knew man and woman were meant for this. It is our nature. Jolene… she is nothing but lies. I see that now. How could something that feels so incredible, so _wonderful_ , be so wrong?" She held his eyes. "I have to leave you now, Link. I'm sorry. But I promise you I will do what I can to protect you and, soon, rescue you. We are joined now, you and I." She kissed the bridge of his nose. "We belong to one another." She kissed his mouth, right atop the gag. "And I will not let any further harm come to you."

She rose, made for the torch, and dressed herself. When it was done, she looked back to him, noticed his cock lying flaccid outside his breeches, and promptly tucked it back inside before lacing him up again. When her fingers came against him though, Link stiffened a bit, and Aveil looked to him. The thought seemed to cross both their minds: _Again._ But Aveil said, "I have been gone too long already. There will be other times, Link of Hyrule. I promise you that."

Then she took her torch and left, and Link was alone again.

But Aveil had held true to her word: for a time there, a little while at least, Link had been free.


	8. Chapter 8

Ruddy streaks of light came clawing their way down the stairs, washing away the darkness that had been Link's only companion for a long time. _Too long,_ he thought, wincing as the torchlight sent bolts of pain lancing into his unadjusted eyes. He squinted, listened. Footsteps were carrying down the stairs beyond his cell, but they were not the careful, light, steps of Aveil that he'd heard last. These were harsh strides, unconcerned with the noise they were stirring as they marched, and Link knew who was coming to him long before his cell door was plugged with a key and sent back reeling on its rusted hinges to clatter against the wall.

Jolene was garbed in a leather vest studded with brass pegs along the hem and inseams, dark trousers, pointed boots, and a stringy gold necklace looped around her slender neck. She wore no silk mask today, and so when she neared with her torch, Link saw her big hooked nose was decorated with an opal atop its nostril. Beneath her jeweled beak, the woman's lips spread to a cruel grin. "Prisoner."

Link chewed the cloth gag wedged firmly between his teeth. He balled his hands to fists, but did not bother tugging at his binds. He'd done enough of that in the many days of his captivity, bound to the bed below the sands in the Gerudo dungeon, and all he'd accomplished was chaffing his wrists and ankles till they grew red and sore. He was bound up too tightly to escape, especially in the weakened, half-starved, condition he was being kept in, and so he only met Jolene's mocking greeting by staring up at her, resolved to remain silent and still to best conserve what little energy remained to him.

Jolene must have took that as either obedience or defeat, for his lack of response only broadened her ugly grin and turned it uglier. She ensconced her torch and sauntered up to edge of his bed, fixing him with a long, cold, stare before saying, "I know what you and Aveil did."

_Impossible._ Link narrowed his eyes on the woman, wary of some trick.

"That's right, prisoner. I know _everything_ my girls do, and the two of you aren't half as clever as you think you are. She came down here and took your pretty Hylian cock out of your pretty Hylian breeches and fucked you till you spent your seed." Jolene's hand fell to her hip, her fingers dancing along the hilt of her whip. "That girl was a far better whore than she was a liar, though. I caught her above. It mustn't have been not long after… you two had your fun. She wore a satisfied little smile and had a strange kink in her step that I'd seen before. A kink your man-cock left her with. To test her, I cornered her and brought up the idea of letting you go free. Pathetic girl. She had the audacity to _smile_ at that." Jolene lowered to a knee and leaned forth so that her narrow-set eyes were on par with Link's own. He could smell her breath, earthy and stale, as she spoke. "I cut out her liar's tongue before I slit her throat."

" _Mrmfmm!_ " Link shouted against his gag. His arms came forward of their own volition, but the ropes yanked them back and held them in place, his chaffed wrists burning. He widened his eyes on his captor and shook his head. _She_ _'_ _s lying,_ he thought. _She wouldn_ _'_ _t kill one of her own women_ _…_ _would she?_

Jolene laughed; a brief and joyless thing that sent more stale breath grating across his face. "Any doubts I may have had would surely have been cast aside after _that_ little reaction, wouldn't they? Oh, you _are_ a stupid and naive thing, aren't you, prisoner? It matters not. I told it true. Aveil is dead. And _you_ killed her, you evil man." She rose and called over her shoulder, " _Guards_!"

Before Link had even a moment to gather his thoughts and comprehend what was happening, Jo's crimson guard came filing into the dungeon. They worked fast and meticulous under their commander's orders, unfastening Link's binds only long enough to get him turned around and rebound. His hands were brought to the small of his back and knotted together, the slack used to bind up his elbows and his torso and his shoulders. They roped him so tightly, by the time they were finished, he couldn't budge a muscle above his waist. His legs and feet they left free, and Link knew why soon enough. Jolene barked an order and pointed, and the four guards huddled around him and started marching him forward, out of the cell and towards the stairs.

_I_ _'_ _m leaving this place,_ Link realized, but his thoughts were not focused on his freedom, they were focused on Aveil as he'd seen her last, pretty and smiling, tucking his manhood back into his breeches after they'd been together. _She_ _'_ _s not dead. She_ _'_ _s not._

The twist of stone stairs leading back to the surface was even longer than he remembered. They cut a long, winding, path up a tight corridor that shot upwards out of the earth like the shaft of an arrow. Link's legs were sore and clumsy from misuse, and thrice he stumbled and fell to a knee during the ascent. The women in their crimson masks were quick to set him back upright each time, however, though their patience was as thin as their master's, and each subsequent time they were a bit rougher, a bit angrier, and when Link fell a fourth, one of them hit him in the belly with the butt of her spear. After that, they half-walked, half-dragged him the rest of the way.

When the stairs ended in a small room, he was shoved down to his knees before the doorway. Jolene strolled before him with a rope looped into a noose dangling from her hands. She lassoed his neck with it, pulled it tight enough to pinch his skin but not cut off his air supply, and gave him a little tug. Link was helpless but to lurch to his feet and come along after her, lest his 'leash' choke him. She walked him out of the stairwell, through the brief confines of an emptied hall, and around a corner of rough stone. When they marched beneath a low-hung doorway, Link saw something he'd started to believe he might never seen again: the sky.

Twilight was settling down over the Gerudo camp, casting soft purple light across the sprawl of tents, carpets, and pavilions. Link breathed deep of the desert air. It was crisp, clean, and had a taste that was a thousand fold more pleasant than the stuffy confines of his cell had been. He shuffled his feet and felt the warmth of the sand between his toes. From beyond the camp he heard the sounds of the desert calling: wind gusting across the dunes; the distant staccato cry of a vulture; a faint rumble of some desert storm leagues off. They were wonderful sounds after the oppressive silence of the dungeon, but Link was struggling to find the joy in any of them. He was scanning the camp grounds. He was looking for Aveil.

Jolene jerked at his noose and Link stumbled forward to keep up with the long strides of her long legs. She marched him down the sloping sand that crested up to the fortress where'd she'd been keeping him, pulled him between the long stone wall dividing them from the camp, and yanked him the last stretch of the journey towards a staked log jutting up out of a little sand mound before the sprawl of tents began. She leashed him to an iron ring set in the stake and signaled to her guards. They took hold of him and shoved his back up hard against the wood before coiling a length of rope around and around his torso, binding him tightly to the log. When he was secured, Jolene strode up to him and made sure he saw the sardonic little smirk she wore before turning to the camp and shouting, " _Girls! Girls, come to me! Wake up, ladies! Come! Join me! There is punishment to be dealt tonight!_ "

Slowly, they came blossoming from the myriad of tents concealing them. Women with olive skin and puffy trousers, or bronze skin and silk dresses, copper-headed girls with long noses, and girls with dark red hair tied into ponytails or buns and decorated with thin bands of gilded twine. Girls came in sandals or boots or barefooted. More came with jewels dangling from hooped earrings or silver necklaces or bracelets inlaid with gems, and some came without any decoration at all but for their silk masks draped across their nose and mouths, turning their expressions inscrutable. As they came funneling around the little mound of sand Jolene and himself stood upon, Link watched their eyes all gradually coalesce upon him; curious eyes, mistrustful and shrewd.

" _Girls!_ " Jolene cupped her hands around her mouth to bellow over the chatter until it waned away. When it had, she paced the length of the mound, gesturing to the crowd with her coiled whip. "I regret to inform you, ladies, that I am to be the bearer of bad news on this evening. There has been a death in the family." A cascade of hushed concern made its rounds through the girls, gaping their mouths and widening their eyes. Jolene continued, "Our sister, Aveil, is no more. She was murdered." Jolene stepped aside and angled a long, accusatory, finger at Link's face. "And here stands her killer."

A joint gasp moved through the Gerudo girls as their expressions turned dark and incredulous before slowly morphing to indignant scowls and barred teeth. They looked to one another, to Jo, to Link, their anger rising a crescendo with each flick of their eyes. Someone shouted, someone else joined in, then they were all pressing close to the crest of the little mound, jabbing their fingers at Link and demanding justice from Jolene. The tall woman watched, nodding along, basking in their righteous fury. She turned back to Link and shouted over the din, " _Silence!_ ", and when the women's chattering quieted, said, "I was too lenient with you girls, and with our prisoner. I wanted to show you the wicked nature of man. I wanted you to see his bestial heart. Well, show you I have… but I never wanted this." She reached for her whip, grasped it, yanked it out and snapped the coil into a long, braided, thong that stretched a line before her feet. "This… _man_ raped her, _hurt_ her, and when he had his fill of her, he cut her throat." Jolene faced the crowd. "And all because she went to his dungeon to talk to him and learn more about him and wherever he came from!"

The crowd was working themselves into a frenzy by then, elbowing at one another to close the cinch around the mound and get at Link. A few had unsheathed daggers. One held a scimitar. Another, a crossbow. Link could only watch them, feeling the heat baking off their faces like the sun lifting from the sands. He balled his hands to fists at the small of his back and gave a tug, but the tight restriction the ropes replied with reminded him he wasn't going anywhere. In his mouth, his gag tasted dry and bitter against his tongue.

Jolene had to crack her whip to command the camp's attention and get them quieted down again. "That's right, girls. The feral beast hiding in this man's flesh has revealed itself, as I've always told you it would. I only apologize that I let him live for as long as I did. If I hadn't… poor Aveil might yet still live. I have spared you the horror of showing you her body, and what this monster did to it… I can only hope _after_ he'd already killed her. Here. This is the only pretty reminder we have of our once-pretty sister." She pulled a long strand of azure silk from her waistband, mottled with lakes of dried blood, and held it reverently before the crowd to gaze at. "Her mask… our poor sister's mask."

" _Vengeance!_ ' A woman with thick arms and a single, shaggy, eyebrow running across her forehead demanded near the foot of the mound.

" _Murder the murderer!_ ' Another added, shaking her fist and seething.

Another: " _Whip him!_ "

" _Whip him bloody, Jo!_ "

" _For Aveil!_ "

" _For our sister!_ "

Jolene didn't need to be asked twice. With an almost-casual flick of her wrist, the bulbed tip of her whip came lashing at Link's face. He turned to avoid the attack, but not nearly quick enough. The leather thong kissed his cheek; a venomous, sharp, kiss that left a line of blood in its wake. He bit his gag to stave off the pain. Jolene sneered. "Is that what you want, girls? To see this monstrous creature whipped to his grave?"

A smattering of cheers came in answer.

Jolene's wrist snapped again. Her whip found a spot of bare flesh on his chest between the ropes binding him to the stake to lash against. Link closed his eyes and ground his teeth against the cloth between them. Another lash caught his arm across the shoulder. Another found his legs. Yet another laid across his collarbone. Each blow stung more severely than the last, and by the time Jo's whip found his stomach, Link was near certain he was biting down hard enough on his gag to chew right through it.

Around the mound of sand, the girls went on cheering their approval until a familiar voice shouted, " _Wait, Jo!_ "

The shout had bought him a moment's respite from the cruel tip of Jolene's whip, and Link used it to breath deep of the desert air and collect himself before prying his eyes open. There, standing beside the Gerudo's leader, was Kotake. She was shorter than most of the other girls, and standing a full head below Jolene, looked almost comical in comparison. She was garbed in her green silks to match her green eyes, baggy white trousers, and a teal cloth headband that wrapped her brow and kept her curly fall of copper hair from her face. She glanced at Link, frowned, and looked back to Jolene. "The whip is too kind a punishment for this… _beast_."

Jolene lifted a brow. "Oh? Is that so, little Kotake?"

"Yes. It is so." The young woman turned on Link and shook her head with disgust before sauntering up to him. Her hand darted out to snatch up his chin and hold his head steady for her to glare upon. "I had a taste of this creature's cruelty myself… he captured me the last time he tried escaping us. He bound me and used me." She slapped his face. Link simply stared, letting the flesh of his cheek numb. "I say we stake him down, out in the desert, with his hands and feet spread wide so the vultures have their choice of where to start nibbling." She turned to the crowd. "What do you say to that, my sisters? Forget the whip! Let us give his beastly flesh to the beastly vultures and feed our beautiful desert!"

The crowd's response was unanimous. They threw up their arms and clapped their hands and shook their fists, and the camp filled with the resounding echoes of Link's fate being sealed.

…it was only Jolene who did not join in the fray. Her narrow-set eyes fixed themselves on the crowd a moment before turning to Kotake and squinting down even further, giving the woman a predatory visage as she stalked up to the smaller woman atop the sand mound. "An interesting proposition, Kotake."

Kotake faced her with a smile, but when she saw that dark, shrewd, look etched upon Jolene's own face, the smile melted away at once. "Yes, I… I think it is a fitting punishment, Jo."

"You came up with that all on your own?"

Kotake swallowed. Link saw her feet shuffling, wanting to retreat as Jo neared. "Y-Yes. I just came up with it now."

"Because I know you and Aveil spoke the other day. After my guards found you all trussed up in the stable shed." The woman smiled, a venomous, baleful thing that wormed a line beneath her beaked nose. "Perchance, little Kotake, what did you girls talk about?"

Kotake shook her head. "Just… just about…"

"About…?"

"I-I… I don't recall."

"You don't _recall_?" Jolene had closed the gap between them entirely then. That close, she absolutely towered over her smaller 'sister'. The woman's hand fell to her hip, her long fingers playing at the hilt of a dagger sheathed there. The gesture was not lost on Kotake, whose eyes flittered nervously down and back. "Tell me, Kotake, when this beast-man 'used you' as you say… what did it feel like having his cock inside you?"

Kotake glanced at Link. There was a look in those vibrant greens of hers that cried ' _Help_ ', but Link was bound too tightly to do a thing but watch. He pulled at his ropes, his helplessness never more frustrating.

"Did he use your mouth as well?" Jolene went on.

"My… my mouth?"

"Oh, weren't you aware, my sweet thing? A man likes to use a woman's mouth just as much as he likes to use her cunt." Jolene's lips pulled back from her grin, barring her teeth as she stared down at the smaller Gerudo. "Here, let me show you." She reached for Kotake's shoulder, grasped it, and forced the woman down to her knees.

Kotake planted into the sands before Jolene and angled her head back to look up at her. "W-What are you doing?"

Jolene slid her dagger from its sheath and held it down between her legs, the pointed side angled out directly at Kotake. "Open your mouth, girl."

Kotake only gaped up at her incredulously. Even the crowd had quieted down and wore matching expressions of uncertainty as they watched the bizarre scene play out before them.

"I said _open your mouth_ ," Jolene repeated, lacing her words with cruel command.

Slowly, Kotake did. Link saw her lips quivering.

Jolene's grin broadened into a smile as she stepped closer, thrust her hips forward, and laid the steel of her dagger down atop Kotake's tongue. The younger woman whimpered, but when Jo demanded she close her mouth, she obeyed. Her lips—still quivering—closed down around the dagger, sealing it inside her mouth up to hilt.

"Good girl." Jolene leaned back a bit so that the dagger dragged out of Kotake's mouth, running between her tightly clamped lips, but before the steel left her completely, Jo stopped and slid her hips forward again until the hilt pressed against her mouth once more. "This is how a man uses your mouth with his cock. Do you like this, girl?"

Kotake could not speak with the dagger effectively gagging her, but her eyes gave answer enough; they were wide and rheumy and filled with fear.

"No?" Jolene questioned, thrusting her hips back and forth again. "That's strange. I thought you would. …considering you're lust for _this_ man's cock beside us."

" _Mmm_!" Kotake mumbled, but when she made to pull away, Jolene reached out with her free hand and took a fistful of her hair.

"Squirm and I'll put my dagger through the back of your lying, whore throat," the Gerudo leader snapped, her playful demeanor vanishing as quickly as it had arisen, the cruel mistress she truly was rising up to take its place. " _Girls_ ," she shouted to the crowd as she held Kotake's hair and watched a tear roll the woman's cheek. "It would appear we have a whore-traitor amongst our numbers! It seems our sweet Kotake's sweet simple mind has been poisoned with a lust for man-cock. She was planning to aid his escape tonight."

Kotake tried speaking around the dagger, perhaps to defend herself, but Link saw the edge of the blade cut at the corner of her mouth, and that put an end to her attempts quick.

"Silence, girl," Jolene demanded. "Don't deny it. You wanted to stake this man out in the desert… only so that you could ride out tonight and free him. Is that it?"

Kotake shook her head the best she could.

"Don't lie, girl. Don't make this worse for yourself. You wanted to aid him. You wanted to free him. You want his cock in your mouth instead of my dagger. Admit it. _Admit it, Kotake_!"

Kotake's tremble had moved from her lips to her entire body as she squeezed her eyes shut and whimpered against the dagger filling her mouth. When Jolene ripped hard at her hair and demanded a confession again, the young woman broke: she nodded her head as tears rolled her cheeks.

Jo slid the dagger from between her lips, planted a sandaled foot on the kneeling woman's chest, and kicked her down to the sands. "Traitor. Guards, bind our dear sister hand and foot." Jo's eyes moved to Link. Her grin came cruel and sadistic. "And get her ready for a saddle. Tonight, we give our sweet Kotake her wish…

"We'll feed them _both_ to the vultures."


	9. Chapter 9

They rode out across the desert dunes beneath the pale gaze of a full moon.

There were seven of them in total: Jolene leading the pack at a canter atop her big dark courser; her crimson guard staying tight on her flanks as they dug their sandaled heels into their smaller horses; and Link and Kotake, bound hand and foot and slung over the back of saddles like sacks of flour being brought to the market. The riders pace had started at a trot and gradually rose to a canter, but by the time they'd crested a half-dozen dunes, Jolene shouted and spurred them to a gallop, and that was the speed they maintained for the rest of the ride. Hogtied and slung across the back of a saddle, it was not an easy ride, nor a comfortable one for Link. He was thankful, for once, for the gag between his teeth; biting down at it helped stave off the pain of the course leather saddle grinding against his bare stomach. Across the convoy, he could lift his head and see Kotake bound the same atop another crimson guard's horse. Her face was wracked with just as much pain, it seemed, and when her rider spurred their horse on, the young woman's small frame went bouncing up and down atop the creature's rear.

They went up dunes and down dunes and up them again, burrowing a straight line deep into the heart of the desert, a fading imprint of hooves in the sand the only thing left behind in their trail. Above, the moon watched over them, casting a faint silver glow across the riders and the shifting golden carpet they rode upon. It was cool in the desert at night, but when the wind gusted, it was outright _cold_ , and Link found himself wishing they'd clothed him more fully before saddling him. _Will the vultures have their chance at me?_ He wondered as their party began a long descent down the backside of a steep dune. _Or will the desert cold claim me before they have their feast?_ He glanced across the way at Kotake again, bound and bouncing atop her horse, and hoped, for her sake, their fate—if it were to come to that—would be the latter. The _former_ … he could not even bring himself to think about.

At the end of a long slope, the desert flattened out into a broad stretch of barren land, and that was when Jolene finally slowed their party back down to a trot and led them out to a muddy expanse beneath a sparse clearing of dead trees. The area might have once been the shallows of some river or lake, but it had long since dried up, and the only thing left was dirt and mud, a rocky alcove that came jutting up beneath a cluster of trees with stripped-bare branches, and the endless desert caving in on all sides around it, swallowing the clearing up in its golden maw. Jolene slowed them to a halt before the horse's hooves found the dip of mud, and dismounted in the dirt. Around her feet, dead grass and weeds that had not yet withered away to nothing sprouted to claw at her ankles. Link watched her march down the line of her riders and pull before him. She leaned down to meet his eyes and hooked his chin with one of her long fingers.

"We've arrived at your grave, prisoner," she told him. "Look around you. This is the last place you'll ever see. Murderer."

Her crimson guard echoed the accusation as they dismounted themselves and huddled around his horse to remove him from the saddle. They sliced the rope binding him into a hogtie and worked him down to stand in the sands before their master. Jolene eyed him with a contemptuous sneer etched across her face before whirling and marching on Kotake's horse. The Gerudo leader scooped the smaller woman up herself, swinging her down the creature's backside to stand her straight. Kotake's eyes flicked to Link's, widened apprehensively, and return to Jo. She attempted to say something, but Jolene had had her gagged as well, and whatever her words were meant to convey was lost beneath the cloth pulled taught across her mouth.

"Quiet, girl," Jolene warned. "Or I'll have your tongue out before I leave you to the vultures."

After that, Kotake stayed quiet.

Jolene sauntered around the clearing, kicking at a patch of loose rocks, bending to pluck a weed free from the dirt. Her eyes scanned and scrutinized, and after a long moment, she gestured to her guard and pointed out a few plots of land beneath her sandaled feet. "There, there, there, and there. Drive the stakes deep, ladies. We wouldn't want our prisoners to get themselves free and starve our poor desert vultures." She laughed. "There will quite the feast here when the sun rises."

And so they worked. The stakes were brought out from saddlebags; thick, long planks of tapered wood that the Gerudo women drove deep into the dirt with steel hammers. Despite the morbid intentions of what was to take place there, the little desert clearing had had a placid silence to it… until the _clinking_ and _clanking_ of the hammers colliding against the stakes' metal tips filled the silence and stripped it of any semblance of peace. When the stakes had been buried up to their necks, Jolene and her guard took hold of Kotake and lugged her over, squirming and writhing in their arms the whole way. They tossed her in between two stakes, and before the girl could start twisting and turning again, they held her down, untied her hands, and rebound them before her chest. When it was finished, they tethered both her wrists and ankles to the stakes above and below, so that she was stretched out long with her arms pulled up over her head.

"There you are, little Kotake," Jolene taunted, lowering to a knee beside the bound Gerudo and unsheathing her dagger. "Be thankful I didn't spread your whore legs before I staked you down… I know you'd love for the vultures to fill you up with their beaks. Here, though. Let's give them a nibble at your teats." And with that, Jo slashed her dagger upwards and cut the center of Kotake's silks. They fell to her sides, leaving the young woman's small breasts bare and exposed. The girl grunted and shook her head, but when she tried moving, Link saw the ropework they'd trussed her up in was solid: she couldn't budge. Another of Jolene's dry cackles filled the clearing as she watched the woman below her squirm. "Little whore. I hope our birds make a feast of these little nipples of yours first." She glanced back at Link. "Tie him down."

They did. The crimson guard worked with the same militant discipline as they marched around Link, hoisted him between them, and lugged him off to be tossed down atop the dirt beside Kotake. They piled up around him as his hands were unbound, moved to his front, and rebound. He was tethered to the stakes the same as his captive partner, but when the guard finished, Jo ordered he be pulled extra tight and his binds rechecked. They yanked his arms up even higher over his head then, to the point where Link winced as his sore muscles were stretched to their limits. It was only when his back arched to give them just the smallest bit of extra slack to pull when they finally knotted his binds and secured him in place. By then, he was so stretched out he could barely squirm his hips or flex his wrists and ankles.

"Good," Jolene said, looking between the two of them staked down on either of her sides. "A good feast for our desert friends, to be certain. Here, let me remove these for you." Her arms stretched and her fingers dug beneath both Link's and Kotake's gags before Jo ripped them from their mouths.

"Jo, _please_ ," Kotake pleaded as soon as she was able. "You don't have to do this to us! You-"

The back of Jolene's hand came thundering across the young woman's jaw, shutting her up at once. "I didn't remove your _muzzle_ to hear your treacherous tongue beg for your pathetic lives, you foolish girl. I removed them so that when a vulture's beak finds one of you… the other will hear the screams and know what agony they'll be in shortly after."

Kotake stared incredulously up at their captor. "…how could you do this to me? You called me your _sister_."

"Oh, sweet Kotake." Jolene's hand fell to the woman's face and softly cupped her chin. "You _were_ my sister. Once. Then you developed a lust for man-cock, and, well, here you lay… beside the cock that did you in." Jo's eyes flicked to Link, narrowed, and a moment later the woman's hand darted for his breeches and yanked them down just enough to bare his member to the desert and the sky and anyone who wished to look upon it. "There's your cock, little Kotake. I hope you get to watch the vultures feast on it."

"Let us go," said Kotake, twisting at her wrists above her head. "Just let us _go_ , Jolene! At least give us a chance to fend for ourselves in the desert without ropes binding us!"

"Enough of your mouth, girl. Another word and I'll fix the gag back in it." The Gerudo leader looked to Link again, her fingers drumming impatiently against her arm as if she were expecting him to plead as well. "Anything to say, prisoner?"

Link stared, nothing more.

Jolene stared right back, dark eyes narrowed above the curved beak that was her nose. Her auburn hair twisted and danced at the back of her neck as the wind swept down off the dunes. After a long silence, she said, "Do you know what the very first thing I'm going to do is when I get back to my camp, prisoner?" When Link did not answer, her smile spread venomously across her face. "I'm going to kill your horse."

Link jerked at his binds. They did not so much as give him an inch of slack, only bit sharply against the skin of his wrists and ankles, and reminded him of his utter helplessness. _Epona_ _…_

His struggle only served to deepen Jolene's delight. "The vultures will feast on you tomorrow morning… and me and my girls will feast on _horse_ tomorrow night." She rose on long legs and swept a final look across the two of them before tittering and turning to saunter off back to the horses.

" _Jo_!" Kotake called after her. When the woman glanced back, she asked, "…is Aveil truly dead?"

Jolene held her eyes. " _Ladies_ ," she called to her guards without breaking that penetrating stare off Kotake, "mount up and start heading back. These two pose no threat any longer. I will catch up."

Her guard, ever obedient, climbed atop their horses at once, dug their heels in, and rode off at a cantor for the big, sloping, dune that overlooked the clearing to the South. When they'd gone, Jolene strolled between her two bound and staked prisoners, looking between them with her hands on her hips.

"I know Mr. Link did not kill her," Kotake said. "When Aveil and I spoke, she told me of his… gentle nature. The very nature that had been kind to me after I'd captured him for myself. So either _you_ killed her… or she still yet lives. Which is it, Jo?"

Jolene unsheathed her dagger and squeezed its hilt precariously between thumb and forefinger. She held it out over Kotake's breast and dangled it back and forth, the blade slipping a little with each swing of momentum. Kotake squirmed and winced and squirmed some more, but there was no escaping the shadow of Jo's makeshift 'guillotine'. The Gerudo leader only snickered to herself as she watched the woman at her feet writhe in fear. When her dark eyes moved to Link she asked, "Mr. Link? Is that your name, prisoner? Link? You'd best answer me this time, too, or this little dagger of mine might slip and pierce your whore friend's little breasts."

"That's my name," Link told her.

Jolene raised a brow. "Then answer me true, _Link_ , because Aveil never would. Even after I whipped her raw… she wouldn't say it. So _you_ say it… you fucked her, didn't you?" Link stared, silent, and Jolene nodded. "I see…" She reached for the hilt of her whip. "Aveil was _mine_ long before she was yours. When I return to camp… and I go down to the little, dark, cramped, hole I have that lying whore locked up in… I'm going to beat her. Then I'm going to use her. Then I'm going to beat her _again_. The rest of her life will be spent in a hole in the ground. And _you_ brought that punishment upon her, Link. _This_ …" She looked to the sky, to the dunes in the South, to the plains in the North, "this is _mercy_ compared to what I'm going to put Aveil through."

"She's alive…" Link muttered _._ Despite his binds and his bruises and his fate, despite it _all_ , he could not help but feel some faint pocket of warmth within him stir then; some distant call of light shining from within the darkness that Jolene had cast over him; for somewhere in him, hope still lived. He balled his hands to fists and glared at his captor. "You're a liar, Jolene, and a sadistic, cruel, woman. And you're going to pay for it. I promise you that."

Jolene grinned, and with the slightest jerk of her wrist, her whip came lashing across his face, cracking crisply in the quiet desert air. The braided thong bit hard against his cheek and jaw, and when Link's head snapped sideways, he saw a smattering of blood coat the desert beside him.

"Farewell, my sweet Kotake," Jolene said, kicking the girl in the ribs as she turned back for her horse. "And farewell, _Link_. I'm afraid we won't be seeing each other again. Enjoy your… feast." She climbed atop her courser, threw her head back in a mirthless bark of laughter that echoed across the clearing, and spurred her horse to a gallop as she made for the big dune in the South, back to her camp. The moonlight lit her trail as her horse kicked clouds of sand behind them, then she crested the dune and disappeared beyond, and Link and Kotake were left alone; bound and useless and alone.

It was a long while before either of them spoke. Link stared at the stars poking white holes in the black blanket of the night sky, tracing patterns within them, listening to the winds sweep the dunes, subtly twisting at his wrists and ankles in hope to find some give or slack he might use to free himself.

It was Kotake who finally broke the quiet. "Mr. Link…?"

"What is it, Kotake?"

"I wish I had taken you that night in my tent," the girl confessed with a sad little trace of wistfulness straining her voice. "I know I said a lot of things, but… it was an act. In truth, I'm a maiden myself. I would have liked to experience a man just once before… well, before the end."

To that, Link did not know what else to say but, "It's not the end yet."

"No, I suppose not." She was quiet a while before asking, "What is it like, Mr. Link?"

He turned his head to look at her.

"Being with a woman, I mean. A man and a woman together… Jolene always told us there was nothing more wicked in the world. I always wondered, though… if that is true, what cruel Goddesses must rule over us to make us desire one another so much?" She faced him and her vibrant green eyes swept his bound body. "Even looking upon you now, Mr. Link, I feel myself hunger after you. I want to kiss you and touch your body… I want to make you stiff between the legs so that we could join together as one."

Link turned from her, growing a bit uncomfortable.

"…were you and Aveil truly together, Mr. Link?"

When he closed his eyes, he could still see her, sitting atop him, lifting herself up and down, grabbing at her own breasts. He cast the thought aside before he _did_ stiffen. "…yes," he confessed.

"Oh," Kotake said quietly. "I see." She squirmed in her binds. "My sister still lives… at least there is that. Perhaps Aveil will come to you again, Mr. Link, in the next life… so that you may join as one once more."

"We're not going to die."

"No. Of course not." She laid her head back against the sands and closed her eyes. "We will live forever, Mr. Link, and you and I will marry one day and you'll carry me off in a pretty dress and put a flower in my hair." She smiled. "I'm certain of it."

"Kotake," he called to her, straining to put more certainty in his voice. "We're _not_ going to die."

To that, she only nodded; nodded and fixed him with that sad little forlorn smile that.

* * *

Morning came early. The sun rose in the East, setting the sands there ablaze in a fiery golden-red splash of incipient light. And with the sun came the heat. Link had closed his eyes, and at some point during the night had drifted in and out of a light sleep, but when the heat came, there was no more of that. It started baking the sand before the sun had even crested the horizon, and by the time morning had come on full, he could feel it layering over the desert like a burning blanket, scorching the skin, making it hard to pull a breath. He twisted his wrists, but by then they were raw and chaffed, and all he accomplished was hurting himself. He looked aside to see Kotake wincing as sweat began dappling her smooth, brown skin. They both set to thrashing as much as they could, but their ropes kept them pinned down and useless as the heat came on hotter and hotter. When the sun rose higher, and the red glow of morning began the subtle shift to the yellow-gold of afternoon, the vultures came.

"Mr. Link," Kotake whispered, her bottom lip trembling.

"I see them."

Their wings spread wide and dark against the backdrop of pale blue sky as they soared forth from the western stand of dunes; a dozen vultures in flight, beady black eyes set above long, hooked beaks, watching the sands as they neared. _They look like Jolene,_ Link thought, and the notion was so absurd, he almost laughed. The creatures passed overhead, banked wide, returned for a second pass. They swooped lower, perhaps to better eye their prize, and on a third pass, they descended.

The barren arms of the dead trees beside the mud flat filled up quick. The vultures lowered one by one to wrap their sharpened talons around branches and stretch their long, supple necks forth to gaze at the feast lying staked and bound to the sands below them.

" _Mr. Link_ ," Kotake whispered again, and that time her voice sounded on the verge of breaking as she leaned her head back to stare wide-eyed up at the hungry perchers in the tree.

"Make noise," Link told her, "and thrash about as much as you can. They want a _dead_ meal, not a live one."

"Will that keep them away?"

_For a little while._ "Yes. It will keep them away."

And so it did. The vultures watched patiently, and each time a courageous avian came soaring down to plant its talons in the sand beside them, both Link and Kotake shouted at the thing and threw their hips about. The first two vultures retreated immediately, the second two stared at them with cocked heads for awhile before flapping off, and the third actually ventured a step closer before Kotake yelped extra loud and sent it back to its tree. They went on like that awhile, but each time they had to put on their little show, Link could feel his strength waning away, his voice growing hoarse, his throat painful, his head starting to swim. _It_ _'_ _s the heat,_ he thought. _It is baking us. It is sapping our energy._ What remained of Kotake's silks were drenched in sweat, and the girl's face had flushed a deep red. Link did not doubt he looked the same. When a long stretch of time passed without a vulture coming, he actually saw Kotake close her eyes and nod off.

" _Kotake! Stay awake!_ "

Her eyes flittered open, but she looked to him, there was nothing but defeat in her expression. "I… can't, Mr. Link. I'm dizzy. And hot. And tired… so tired."

_So am I._ "No you're not. Stay awake. You have to."

"I… okay. I will, Mr. Link. I will. I promise."

But in the next stretch of time, waiting between vulture attacks, she'd drifted off again, her head falling back to the sands and slumping towards him, eyes closed, cheeks so red they looked ablaze.

"Kotake," he meant to shout, but his throat was so raw by then he only managed a croak. He swallowed, tried again. " _Kotake_." She did not stir. Link rolled his head back against the sand and panted. It was getting harder and harder to breath the further the sun climbed towards its apex. His skin felt feverish. There was sweat on his brow and on his face and on his chest, and when it dripped lines down his body, he felt a chill take him. He tried to swallow, but no longer could. There was no moisture left in his entire body. _Stay awake,_ a voice pleaded, even as his eyelids turned to iron curtains, slipping down to sink him into the dark void of unconsciousness. _Stay awake._

He fell asleep.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, there were vultures surrounding them. " _No_ ," he tried shouting from the barren land that was his throat. " _Get_ _…_ _away._ " They didn't. They came wobbling forth, long necks stretching, beady eyes staring greedily down at the feast. Link tried pulling at his binds, but he was too hot, too tired, too defeated. _Keep your eyes open,_ he thought as he closed his eyes.

In the dark, he could hear them closing in around him. Something stirred. Wings flapped and beat and faded. Then he heard the chewing. _They_ _'_ _re eating me_ , he thought, but his eyes would not open. The chewing was so close, right beside his ear. Link licked his lips, but his tongue was as dry as sand paper. More chewing, more chewing, more, _more_ , then-

-he was free.

His eyes fluttered open…

…and Epona was beside him, his ropes hanging limp in her mouth. " _Epona_ _…_ " He croaked, a smile taking his face as he reached an exhausted arm up to run his fingers against her mane. Through the slits of his eyes, he saw she was saddled. _Someone tried riding her,_ he realized. When he forced his eyes open further, he saw saddlebags hanging beside her ribs. " _Come_ _…_ _Epona_ _…_ _closer_ _…_ _closer, girl_ _…_ " She trotted forward, whinnying and shaking her mane. Link stretched his hand for the saddlebag, found it, flipped its cover aside, and found salvation.

He yanked the skin of water out and shoved it against his lips. When he threw his head back, the water that came pouring into his mouth from within was about the most wonderful thing he'd ever tasted. He'd drank down half the skin before pulling it away, wrestling himself over to Kotake, and lifting her head with his free hand as he poured life back into her mouth. She awoke with a startle, choking a bit on the water, but Link eased up and made her drink nonetheless. When she came to, he trickled some down over her forehead before doing the same to himself.

"Mr… Link?"

"You're okay," he told her. "We're alive, Kotake."

The girl's eyes moved over his shoulder to Epona. "Your horse?"

Link nodded.

"She is hurt."

Link turned back around and saw Kotake was right. There were spots of dried blood in long lines down around Epona's legs. She'd been whipped. Link's hand curled to a fist as he went to work ripping the ropes off his legs before untying Kotake, then rushed up to Epona and stroked her mane. "Are you alright, girl?"

She neighed and whinnied, but when Link pressed his forehead to her own, she settled. _She_ _'_ _s alright,_ he knew then, and was at least thankful for that.

"What now?" Kotake questioned as she walked up beside him to run her own hand against Epona's mane. "What will you do, Mr. Link? Where will you go?"

Link faced the Southern stand of dunes. "Aveil is alive. If we could free her… and bring her before the rest of your sisters… would it be enough, Kotake? To prove Jolene is a liar, without a shadow of a doubt. Would it be enough for them to abandon her?"

Kotake chewed her bottom lip as she considered it. "Well… _most_. Yes, most would turn on her, I'm sure of it. But… there _are_ those who will remain loyal, Mr. Link. Jolene will make sure of _that_. She'll lie to them, trick them, convince them. She is… _very_ convincing at times. The Gerudo don't like liars, but Jolene is the strongest woman we've ever had, and it it as I told you before - the Gerudo follow strength. We'd have a war on our hands. There would be… much blood spilled."

"Follow strength…" His fists tightened involuntarily, his thoughts racing through his head, desperate for an answer. When he found one, he spun on Kotake and took her by the arm. "What if I defeat her?"

"Defeat her? Jolene?"

"Yes. What if I challenge her to single combat while you rescue Aveil. Then we could prove that she is both a liar… _and_ weak. Would that do it, Kotake? Would that convince them?"

Kotake held his eyes. Slowly, a smile came across her face. "Yes, Mr. Link. That would do it."

Link nodded. "Then get ready to ride…

"We're going back."


	10. Chapter 10

The sand slid through his fingers, coarse and supple against his skin as Link reached for handholds. His belly was bare, and laid flat against the baking sands, felt as if there was a fire crackling just below the earth under him, waiting to cook him up. When he saw Kotake squirm forward higher up the dune before him, he was eager to match her slow, meticulous movements and creep along himself; moving, at least, kept the heat from building too severely against any one spot on his exposed skin. Her foot slid up the dune, her toes dragging a little line in the sand, and Link followed its trail with his hand. When her ownhand moved, his foot did, and so they went like that, matching strides, slowly crawling their way up the golden hill that was the Gerudo camp's southern flank. When the dune crested and flattened out, Kotake gestured him beside her with a wiggle of her fingers, and Link obeyed. He wormed his way onto the flattened tip of the dune and kept his chin pressed to the burning carpet of sand that crowned it, the same as his Gerudo partner beside him.

Below them, the camp lay sprawled out in its myriad splash of colored silk tents and pavilions, flanked on all sides by the high, rolling dunes of gold that swallowed it up into a little valley. Link narrowed his eyes against the hot white light of the afternoon sun and swept a long look across the land. The Gerudo were out in full. Some were gathered before tents, chatting with one another and gesturing with their slender bronze arms; what they spoke _of_ , of course, Link could only guess at. Others were grouped up at the mouth of the big pavilion at the camp's northeastern quadrant, where Link could see a few more girls heading in and out of the tent's big gaping entrance; the silk roof poking up in a half-dozen spots where the stakes had been planted beneath. More stood in long lines down outside the stables, and when Link squinted, he could see part of the wooden planks that had made up the outer gate were splintered and cracked. _That must_ _'_ _ve been Epona_ _'_ _s work,_ he surmised, glancing over his shoulder to cast a smile on his white-maned horse, waiting patiently at the foot of the slope with her big dark eyes watching over him.

"I don't see Jolene," Kotake said.

Link followed her eyes to the rear of the camp, where the Gerudo fortress loomed over all, its carved windows peering out across the tents like the watching eyes of some massive stone beast. He began, "If she's got Aveil locked up…"

Kotake nodded. "That is most certainly where Jo would be keeping her." The girl winced. "I only hope my sister has not been harmed too severely. In truth, Aveil and I were never that close, but I can still remember playing with her at the ponds when we were little. She was a bit older than me, tall and curvy, and we all knew one day she would be beautiful." Kotake's eyes moved sideways to Link. "But, of course, you already know of her beauty, Mr. Link… in more ways than one, I suppose."

Link refused to meet her eyes; he knew what sort of look was awaiting him there. Kotake had not tried to hide her desire for him. The entire ride back to camp atop Epona, she had ridden seated in the saddle between his legs, with Link's arms wrapped around her sides to guide Epona by the reigns. Kotake had taken great delight in that, wiggling her hips from time to time, inching her rear end further back along the saddle to press against Link. Thrice she had reached up and stroked at his bare arms, laying her head back so that her wavy, copper, hair bounced against his face. It smelled clean and fresh, but Link had simply moved his head to the side to keep his eyes on the sands… and the uncomfortableness in his breeches at a minimum. When they'd dismounted, she'd 'accidentally' stumbled into his arms, and her hands had slid down across his bare chest. "My apologies, Mr. Link," she'd cooed, fixing him with a smile and that hungry stare of hers, but Link had again avoided it.

Now, he was busy avoiding it again as he stared down at the Gerudo camp. "Can you sneak in without attracting attention?"

"I am small and supple, and though many of my sisters accuse my mouth of being big and noisy, I can keep it shut when I need to," Kotake replied with a quiet giggle. "And I go many places where I should not, and no one is ever any the wiser after I've gone again. Yes. I can sneak into Jolene's little fort." Her hand reached out and fell atop his own. "I only wonder if you can _defeat_ her, Mr. Link. She is strong and well nourished, and you… you have been starved and staked, bound and beaten. The sun has baked your face and chest, and the cruel sands have put blisters on the bottoms of your poor feet. Can you, Mr. Link? Can you defeat her truly?"

_Can I?_ He slipped his hand out from under Kotake's. "I have to try, don't I? You said it yourself. The Gerudo will never fully abandon her unless I do."

"Sadly, that is the way of it."

"Then it's what I have to do."

"You are very brave and courageous, Mr. Link."

Link _did_ meet the young woman's eyes then, for a question had risen from the back of his mind that needed answering. "And If we succeed… what then, Kotake?"

"What do you mean, Mr. Link?"

"Will I be free to go? Will I be allowed to mount my horse and gather my things and ride out of here without protest? Or will you girls attempt to keep me again? Bind and gag me and lock me away?"

Kotake's vibrant eyes grew even more so as the idea, clearly, awoke some clandestine little fantasy within her. "Well… I suppose if Aveil and yourself have truly joined as one, she will try to claim you. Of course, I mean to make a claim for you myself. I'm sure others will as well. You are… quite the prize, Mr. Link."

Link sighed. It was the answer he'd been expecting, but wracked him with disappointment nonetheless. "So that's it then? Even after I help you remove Jolene and put an end to her cruelty… you still mean to make me a prisoner here?"

"Not a _prisoner_ , Mr. Link!" Kotake protested with a frown. "You will never taste the whip again, if that is what you mean. Never ever. That was Jolene's cruelty, not the Gerudo's. And you would be free to move about the camp as you please, of course. You would dine with us and ride with us and make love to us when we desire it. Your place here would be one of honor, not of captivity."

"…and if I refuse this 'place of honor'?"

Kotake stared at him. "Why would you do that, Mr. Link?"

"That's not an answer, Kotake. What would you and the others do if I refused you? Tell me."

Kotake turned from him to set her eyes back on the camp, though the frustration was clear enough upon her face. "…we would be very disappointed."

"Disappointed enough to bind me with ropes and keep me against my will?"

Kotake ignored that. She gestured across the camp. "I will ride your Epona around the dunes if she will allow it. I can move unseen all the way to the back of Jolene's tower in that way. From there, I will sneak in and see to freeing my sister. It would be easier for me if you were to make your challenge before I dismount."

Link nodded, but would not simply 'forget' Kotake's refusal to answer his question. "Alright. I'll wait until you've gone beyond the western dune to head down. And you're certain Jolene will face me? What's stopping her from simply having me whipped and chained the moment I'm seen?"

Kotake shook her head, her copper curls brushing against her bare shoulders as she rolled to her back. "No. She can't. Not now. Once my sisters see that you've survived her punishment, they will already begin to doubt Jolene's strength. When you openly challenge her, a refusal would do nothing but ensure her weakness, and Jo would lose her grip on them. She _must_ face you if you challenge her, or risk losing her leadership. So make your challenge quickly, Mr. Link, before she can silence you."

Link nodded, but when Kotake returned the gesture and made to slide herself back down the dune to Epona, he took her by the arm and held her in place. "Kotake… when this is over…"

She wiggled free of him and scowled. "Yes, when it is over, you will flee back to your wonderful little Hyrule and your pretty fair-skinned girls with their dresses and their fancy shoes, and us Gerudo here will be left all alone…"

"You'll let me go then?"

Kotake's scowl only deepened. "I want to give my _heart_ to you, Mr. Link! I want to be yours and you to be mine! It's not _fair_! You are a big, mean man if you would break a young girl's heart in such a way, and a big mean man _deserves_ chains and captivity. _Yes_ , alright? Yes - I will try to stop you and keep you for myself if you make to flee… even if that requires a rope for your cruel hands and a gag for your cruel mouth! There. Now you know." And before Link could respond, she'd twisted herself around and launched into a little hop that got her sliding down the dune. At its base, she swung herself up onto Epona, but the horse looked to Link for approval before she would move. Link gave it with a nod of his head, and Epona allowed herself to be spurred around towards the western edge of the valley. The two of them disappeared a moment later, both Kotake's hair and Epona's mane dancing wildly in the wind. _But which of the two is truly wilder?_ Link mused. _That girl is going to be trouble._

After they'd been gone a dozen heartbeats, Link pulled a breath, got his knees under him, and began the long slide down the dune himself; though _his_ slide carried him in the opposite direction. He kept his arms and legs tucked tight together as he rode the warm sands down to the Gerudo encampment. With each start and stop, he expected someone to see him and cry out in a call to arms, but no one did, and he'd actually managed to reach flat ground again without a single woman raised to alert. He dug his feet into the sands and pushed himself to a sprint, breaking for the little clearing that mounded up towards the center of the valley, where the Gerudo women held their makeshift 'combat pit'. He was halfway there when a shrill cry filled the camp somewhere between the forest of tents on his left, but Link ignored it and kept his feet moving. When he ascended the little mound and had a good vantage point over the rest of the camp, he stepped to its center with his hands cupped around his mouth and bellowed, " _Jolene! I_ _'_ _ve returned! I_ _'_ _ve returned, Jolene, and I challenge you to combat! I challenge Jolene, leader of the Gerudo, to single combat against me!_ "

It did not take the clearing long to fill out. Women were rushing to the foot of the mound from every angle it seemed. Some came with whips in hand, ready to lash him, others with spears clutched between knuckles gone white, others still with daggers, their fine, steel points glimmering against the afternoon sun. Yet there were many Gerudo who came bearing nothing at all, save for curious expressions wrinkling their jeweled and veiled faces. And when the clearing was filled to the brim, every last vacant spot at the base of the mound filled with the onlooking eyes of a Gerudo, Jolene herself materialized from within her fortress; her four crimson guards tight on her flanks as always. When her eyes found Link, rage lit afire within them and her expression contorted with fury. She marched down into the camp at once, her teeth barred like some feral creature coming to eat its prey. When she reached the crowd, they split apart for her and Jolene did not hesitate in the slightest to ascend the mound and stomp into the clearing across from Link. In one hand, her whip lay uncoiled, in the other, a dagger.

"I challenge you to single combat, Jolene," Link announced before she could bring that whip across his mouth and silence him.

Jolene was huffing and puffing as she stared incredulously across the gap between them. " _How_!?" She wailed. "How did you free yourself!? Answer me!"

"I challenge you," Link repeated, sweeping his eyes across the crowd of women to make sure they'd heard. "Do you accept, Jolene? …or do you fear me?" _That will ensure her answer,_ Link hoped.

Jolene's cheeks flushed a deep red. "How _dare_ you, you… you _murderer!_ " She snapped her head towards the crowd. "Aveil's killer has returned to us, ladies! How are we going to deal with that!? _Well_!?"

A quiet uncertainty layered over the Gerudo as they turned to fix one another with pensive looks. A few muttered words, too quiet to be heard from Link's position centered in the clearing, but none, thankfully, looked to be willing to charge and attack him.

Finally, someone piped up. "The man challenged you, Jolene," a woman with thick arms and legs and a curved sword resting in a sheath below her plum silks said. "You must answer the challenge. Go on. Bring justice to Aveil."

"We should have never let the prisoner out of the camp in the first place," another woman added.

"He should suffer the same fate as our sister," yet another spoke up. "With a blade across his throat."

"But first…"

"You must answer the challenge, Jo."

"Yes, answer the challenge."

" _Answer! Answer!_ " A woman began chanting, and before long, they'd all taken the words up _,_ and the camp filled with dozens of voices bellowing in unison, " _Answer! Answer! Answer!_ "

" _Silence_! _"_ Jolene shrieked to drown them out and quiet them down. When they had, she turned her dark eyes on Link; the nostrils at the end of her beaked nose flaring in and out. "I accept your challenge your murdering, craven _man_! I accept, and this time when I have your neck beneath my foot, I will show no mercy. I'm going to kill you, for Aveil… and for Kotake, whatever you may have done with her, as well."

"She's alive," Link began, "and so is Aveil."

A hushed chatter moved through the crowd immediately, and Link watched—for the first time—a strange look cross Jolene's face. It might have been anger. It might have been doubt. It might have been fear. Truly, it might have been all three. Her lips twisted beneath her big nose and her eyes flittered back to her guard. She gestured to the fortress with a nod of her head, and they moved for it at once.

Only they never made it, for halfway towards the wall, two figures emerged from the shadow of the stone that halted them in their tracks.

" _Aveil!_ " A woman shouted from the crowd, and a chaotic din followed, sweeping a chorus of shouts and yelling across the camp.

Kotake came struggling forward from the fortress with Aveil held carefully against her body. Aveil's face was bloodied, cuts lined her arms and legs, and shackles bound her hand and foot, but she was alive, very much so, and the crowd of women were dumfounded one moment, cheering joyously the next, and, finally, turning narrowed, mistrustful eyes on Jolene. Jolene looked from one woman to the next, perhaps searching for a friend, but when her search clearly did not produce the results she'd hoped for, she swallowed and turned back to stare at Link.

" _I accept_!" Jolene wailed over the crowd's din. " _Do you hear me, ladies!? I accept this vile man_ _'_ _s challenge, and I expect you all to respect the fight. I must face him. Stay out of this, and after we will talk. There is_ _…_ _much explaining to do._ "

"You _lied_ , Jo!" Someone shouted.

"Why did you deceive us!?"

"Did you hurt Aveil!?"

"Did you chain her!?"

" _Why_ , Jo!?"

" _I did what I did to protect you girls! Nothing more!_ " Jolene tossed her whip and dagger down and slipped out of her sandals. "And now I fight for you. Because I love you all. Because you are my sisters. And when this treacherous man is dead, you will understand that love… and you will _appreciate_ it." She angled a long finger at Link and sneered. " _I am a strong leader! I am_ your _leader! And now I will kill the man who has stirred up such trouble within our family! For all of you_ " With that, she sprinted the gap between herself and Link and leaped into the air.

For a fleeting moment, it looked as if Jolene could fly. She was high above him, suspended against the pale blue backdrop of the desert sky, her knees clad in their puffy trousers pulled up to her belly, her arms thrown out to her sides. Then she was descending upon him, like the vultures had descended on him and Kotake out in the desert, and her beak looked just as menacing as theirs. Link threw himself aside. He cleared the narrowing shadow of his attacker, but one of her feet lashed out and drummed across his jaw. He stumbled down to a knee, collected himself, rose-

-and Jolene was charging again, her mouth wide and wailing some shrill staccato cry. Her knee lifted to shatter his chin, but Link threw himself forward to meet her momentum prematurely. They collided in air, twisted a half turn, and fell to the sands tangled in one another. Jolene's fingers came raking across his eyes and lips, looking to tear them asunder. Link snapped his head this way and that, wrestling to tame the woman's wild arms and keep her clawing hands at bay. She roared, craned her neck back, then thrust her head forward. Her brow collided with his own, and for a moment, the world went black and wobbly. Then Link's eyes snapped back open - just in time to dodge a closed fist barreling down at his nose.

He jolted his momentum sideways and the two went rolling in the sands, Jolene's relentless assault never giving him even a solitary second of respite as she clawed and punched and kicked and kneed, and when their roll finally halted with Link mounted atop her, she wailed again and threw the heels of her feet up under the pits of his arms to drag him backwards and off her waist. Link fought it, but was not strong enough to stop the woman's long legs from wrapping him up between her thighs when she'd gotten him down and squeezing; squeezing as she had in their first confrontation days earlier. Link grit his teeth and pulled a deep breath before she could choke his air off, wrestling his fingers down between her knees and pulling to ease off the pressure. Jolene screamed and squeezed harder, but Link thrust his hands up and his neck down, and a moment later his head popped out beneath her thighs just as they closed off above him.

Jolene scrambled around in a wide arc as she returned to her feet. Link clambered up himself. His opponent charged him, feigning left and sweeping right like some serpentine reptile moving through the sand. But when her leg suddenly lurched, and her foot came up to drive against his chest, Link snatched it at the ankle and twisted, and Jolene was helpless but to go spinning down to the sands. He made to mount her again, but the woman writhed out of his hold and slipped herself under his legs. Link turned back to face her-

-and the heel of her foot came spinning furiously across his jaw. His head snapped sideways as he stumbled back a half-dozen steps before the world spun and he plopped down to his ass. When the blurred haze left his vision, though, he saw Jolene was flying again; soaring up against the sky with her knee bent and ready to drive down across his throat. He roared himself then, slamming his fist against the earth and rolling aside just as Jolene's attack thundered into the ground, sending up puffs of sand in every direction. Link stood, lurched, grabbed her wrists as she was rising. Jolene threw her weight back, though, and when she landed laid out atop the sand, planted her feet against his stomach and _hoisted_ him up and over her head.

Link sailed forward, momentarily weightless before crashing back down to the sand. He winced as the air was driven from him and pain wracked his lower back, but made himself stand all the same. When he had, Jolene was rushing on his position, relentless as ever, and Link could only stand and wait, collecting what breath he could for the next scuffle. Her hands came battering down on him when she'd closed the gap, but Link swatted them aside, attack-by-attack, using his forearms as makeshift shields. When she started joining her knees and feet to the fray, he had to shift his defense downwards to protect his body. The woman's energy was seemingly limitless, though, and soon enough she began to press the attack forward; Link helpless but to fall back on his heels and give her ground.

He'd gone not ten steps when the fall of land shifted beneath his feet, angling off and sloping downwards. _The edge of the mound,_ he realized. _I have no more ground to give._ Jolene must have known that as well, for at that same moment she screeched and sent her hands and feet driving on him more ferociously than ever.

_Too_ ferocious, as it turned out. She made a mistake, kicking high while trying to move forward, and her back foot came off balance where it was planted in the sand, sending her whole frame wobbling. Link did not waste the opportunity. He drove himself forward, caught her stretched leg against his shoulder, and tackled the woman back onto the sands. That time, he was sure to keep her body under his own, and when they landed, pinned her down with his weight over her shoulders. Her foot came up to hook him away, but she'd used the trick one too many times by then, and Link was ready with the counter. He hooked her ankle beneath the pit of his arm and squeezed, locking it in place. Her other leg was suspended uselessly above his head, all the strength of her thigh worthless with his shoulder pressed to its backside. Her hands came flailing up to swat at his face, but Link snatched them by the wrists and pinned them down to the sands.

"It's over," he told her between breaths.

Jolene's face was as red as the desert horizon at sunset, her teeth barred and clenched so tightly they looked read to shatter, her eyes wide and alert… but there was fear there as well. " _No!_ " She tried writhing and squirming, twisting and jerking every which way, but all her momentum was held awkwardly away from her, and all she accomplished was tiring herself out as Link kept her pinned right where she was.

"It is _over_ , Jolene!" He repeated.

By then, the rest of the Gerudo were moving in around them, braving to ascend the sand mound themselves to get a closer look at their helpless leader as she writhed and screamed her fury. By the time Jolene had finally exhausted herself, the entire camp was huddled up around them, staring down at her. From the back of the crowd, Aveil came, her chains removed, her arm slung over Kotake's shoulder for support. The rest moved aside for her and looked between the bloodied woman and the fallen leader she stood over.

"Aveil…" Jolene said, forcing a smile up at the other woman. "My sister."

"Tell it true, Aveil," a woman began from the opposite side of the crowd. "What did Jolene do to you?"

And so she told them. The story was brief, but the telling brutal. Jolene had kidnapped her from the camp at night, had her dragged down into a dungeon, and then had beaten her bloody with both whip and fists before 'using' her womanly parts for her own pleasure. Jolene listened along with the rest of them, her lips pressed tightly together, her expression steely and resolute, and when the tale ended, stared from Gerudo to Gerudo.

"She has lied to us all along," Aveil told the crowd. "She has poisoned our minds with treachery, our hearts with deceit." Her almond eyes met Link's, the faintest hint of a smile brushing her lips. "And this man is innocent. He is a… good man. Gentle and caring. And us Gerudo have wronged him in more ways than we could ever hope to amend."

The rest of the women looked from one another to Link with their brows furrowed and their eyes narrowed uncertainly.

"His name is Mr. Link," Kotake explained with a grin. When she looked aside to Aveil, though, the joy in her expression waned some. "And he and I have grown very close."

Aveil's brow lifted. "Oh?"

"Yes," Kotake confirmed, lifting her chin a bit. " _Very_ close."

" _Get off me!_ " Jolene demanded from her position pinned below Link.

Aveil turned to Jo's crimson guard. "Do any of you still mean to follow this woman?"

The four ladies in their dark red masks looked to one another. Slowly but surely, each of them shook their head.

Aveil nodded. "Good. Then fetch ropes and bind her hands and feet."

" _NO!_ " Jolene wailed, writhing furiously beneath Link's weight. " _No, you little whore! You will_ not _bind me like some beast! I will not be tamed! Do you hear me, Aveil you whore!? I am your LEADER!_ "

Aveil rolled her eyes. "And gag her as well."

When it was done, Jolene was trussed up as tight as Link ever had been. Thick hempen rope covered her from head to heel. Her former guards didn't even offer her the comfort of a cloth gag, opting instead to simply run a few coils of rope between her teeth. It wouldn't be the most comfortable thing in the world, Link knew, but it had shut Jolene up… for the most part. Her muffled shouting filled the clearing until they dragged her off to a dungeon.

Inevitably, as Link knew it would, the attention turned his way. The women swept shrewd, scrutinizing looks over him as they bunched up around his position with their hands atop their hips or folded across their chests. It was Kotake who came to him first, wiggling her way through the crowd and slipping her arm under his own to entwine them.

"Mr. Link here saved me from a pack of hungry vultures," she proudly proclaimed, squeezing at his arm. "Then he rode with me between his arms all the way back to the camp atop his horse. It was very… intimate."

Aveil stood at the front of the crowd listening, her fingers drumming impatiently atop her arm. "I suppose we must figure out what to do with you now, Link of Hyrule."

"We can't let him go," someone voiced immediately.

"No," another agreed, "he knows too much about our camp and our ways. If the Hylians were to find out where we were…"

"Their kind has always detested our kind."

_They have good reason,_ Link thought. _Ganondorf_ _…_

"What would you have us do then?" Aveil questioned. "Bind him and put him back in a dungeon? After all we've already done to the poor thing?"

"I can stay with him," Kotake offered. "I will keep him company day and night and I could feed him and wash him and-"

"Have your way with him?" Aveil finished.

Kotake's mouth gaped, but she closed it back up quick and averted her eyes.

"We need a new leader," someone suggested. "Then whoever it is can decide the man's fate."

A smattering of agreement coursed through the crowd.

Both Aveil and Kotake nodded along as well. "We will have a choosing, then," Aveil began, "and until a new leader is chosen, we will keep you here as our… _guest_ , Link."

"Our _special_ guest," Kotake chirped, squeezing at his arm.

"You can have Jolene's quarters in the fortress. They are big and well furnished, comfortable, with a pretty view of the whole camp."

Link sighed. "And I suppose I'll be locked inside…?"

Aveil smiled wanly. "For a little while, at least… Link of Hyrule. Until the choosing."

Link lifted his eyes to the fortress. Epona had crested the dune behind it. She watched down over the scene with a placid stillness. "My horse…"

"Will be well taken care of, I assure you."

"Come on, Mr. Link!" Kotake cheered, tugging at his arm. "I will show you the way! Oh, isn't it wonderful!? No more Jolene and now we get to keep you! Well, for a little while at least. Come on come on come _on_!"

With no other option before him, Link went. _Still a prisoner,_ he realized as Kotake ushered him through the crowd and Aveil fell in on his other side soon enough. _Even after all that_ _'_ _s happened_ _…_ _I still belong to the Gerudo_ _…_ _still their_ _'_ _slave_ _'…_ _but for how much longer?_

That, he did not know, and it was with that unsettling uncertainty he lingered with as the girls took him away to the fortress to be locked up.


	11. Chapter 11

From between the smooth slit that had been carved into the top layer of stone that made up the camp's fortress, Link could look out over the camp itself, and the desert as well. It all looked so small from that high up; the Gerudo women moving about their daily business nothing more than little splotches of colored silk and bronze skin; the dunes themselves glowing beneath the day's light like little fallen lumps of gold rather than the massive mounds of endless sand they truly were. He could see the stables set close to the big wall that wrapped the tents up, and in the morning he watched the girls tend to Epona. The women all seemed to like Epona, and that was good. Some of them even sang and smiled as they polished her hooves, or brushed out her mane and ran cool, damp cloths over her body to clean her. That sight, at least, brought Link some joy. Otherwise, there was not much to see. The desert had been aptly named, as it was nothing more, really, than a long stretch of barren land, totally alone and utterly deserted. The horizon lifted in wavy lines when the afternoon sun was high, and the occasional vulture would fly overhead, dark wings stretched against pale sky, but the world's activity, as far as Link was allowed to see, was limited to the confines of the little valley the Gerudo had set up as their camp; beyond was nothing, and Link found himself staring into that nothing often, wondering if he'd ever escape it… or, now, if he even could.

He turned back to face his room. It was a big room, in truth, and as well furnished and comfortable as the girls had promised. Jolene's bed was a huge, feather-stuffed thing with puffy silken pillows and frilly sheets. There was always candle light when he might need it, and some aromatic sticks the Gerudo set to burning for him in little tin chambers that filled the room with a light, flowery fragrance. There were thick carpets underfoot that were soft and ten fold kinder on Link's feet than the desert sands had been. There was even artwork lining the walls; paintings and drawings ( _stolen_ of course, Link did not doubt) of the rolling green hills of Hyrule, or the cobalt streams of rippling water that coursed their way into a pretty depiction of Lake Hylia. One long painting against the western wall even depicted Death Mountain, its craggy surface and halo of ringed smoke blotted against the canvas with squished paint brush strokes. Looking upon all those places only stirred up a faint longing within him, though. As nice as his room was, as big and comfortable and fragrant and decorated… there were still locks on the doors, and he could not bring himself to forget that fact. He was still a captive.

It was high noon when a chatter came drifting into his 'prison' from the hall beyond the barred door that kept him locked within. Link hadn't seen anyone all day or the previous night, and he was eager to rid himself of his isolation. He padded barefoot across the plush carpeting to stand before the door, taking the bars between his fists and staring outside at the world he was not permitted to escape to. From the dim curve of the stairwell, Aveil came first, garbed in her loose-fit azure silks, her dark auburn hair tied back in a ponytail. Behind her, Kotake came bouncing along in her bright green blouse and puffy cream trousers, her own hair let down to shake wildly as she hurried to keep up with her sister's longer strides. The two had seemed to be arguing about something, but when Aveil's eyes lifted to see Link standing at his door, she pressed her lips together, and Kotake wasted no time shouldering past her and moving up to the bars to cup Link's hand in her own.

"Mr. Link!" She greeted.

Despite his captivity, Link found himself offering the girl a smile; her enthusiasm was a welcome change from the solitary confinement that he'd spent the last day and a half sulking about in. "Kotake." His gaze floated over her shoulder to her slightly taller sister. "Aveil."

Aveil returned his smile. "We are sorry to have kept you alone for so long, Link of Hyrule. There was… business to attend to."

"I don't suppose you two have come up here to free me have you?" Link asked, looking between the two women.

Kotake scrunched up her nose. " _No_ , Mr. Link. You know we can't do that."

Link sighed. "And why not?"

"Because you're too _cute_ a prisoner to let go!".

Aveil rolled her eyes and brushed Kotake aside as she fondled with a ring of keys. "The choosing for our new leader has… not gone as well as we had hoped. It seems every one of my sweet sisters thinks themselves a worthy successor to Jo. It is a… very contentious environment." She plugged his door with a key, but hesitated in its opening. "You're not going to try to run out on us, are you?"

"Of course not, Aveil! Don't be silly!" Kotake reached down and twisted the key herself. When the door swung back, she quickly slipped inside and wrapped her arms around Link's neck to stand on the tips of her toes and plant a kiss on his cheek. "I missed you much, Mr. Link."

Link awkwardly wrestled the young woman's arms from around him as he forced a smile in return. Aveil watched the two of them with a furrowed brow a moment before shaking her head and entering the room herself. She closed the door behind her and locked it back up, however, ensuring there would be no 'escape attempts' while the three of them were inside. Link stared at the woman, but Aveil deliberately avoided his gaze and moved to the room's big, oblong window. There, she looked outside as Kotake moved to the bed and plopped herself down to sit cross-legged. Link was left to pace between them atop the carpet as he spoke.

"What's happened?" He asked. "I heard commotion this morning, shouting."

His two captors exchanged an apprehensive look. It was Aveil who answered, "Jolene has escaped us."

That halted his pacing at once. He spun on Aveil incredulously. " _Already?_ "

She sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. We put her in a dungeon down in the first level of the basement. Apparently, however, she found a way to work the gag we muzzled her with out of her mouth and must have talked the guard we posted outside her cell into entering and loosening her ropes." Aveil winced as her eyes fell to her hands. She balled them to fists. "The guard was found dead this morning, her throat slit, and there is a horse missing from the stables. …it would seem Jolene has fled from us not even one whole day after capturing her. That woman is… dangerous."

" _Evil_ ," Kotake added with a nod. "Evil evil evil. I say good riddance. I hope the vultures eat _her_ up like she wanted them to eat up you and I, Mr. Link."

"Don't be a fool, Kotake," said Aveil. "As long as Jolene's tongue remains in her mouth, she is a threat to us all. She might be returning to the other camp… the one we fled from."

Kotake giggled as she played with a strand of her silks. "Let her, my sweet sister. Those girls at the other camp despise Jolene far more than we do. It was our dear Jo, in case you forgot, that decided to abandon them in the first place."

"And it was _us_ who joined in that abandoning."

Kotake shrugged. "They won't let Jolene back into their ranks. No way. None of them liked her."

"She has nowhere else to go…"

"Maybe she is fleeing to Mr. Link's lands. Perhaps she means to make herself a new life beneath the pretty white walls of Hyrule Castle."

" _That_ ," Aveil began with a shake of her head, "would be even worse. I don't like this. We Gerudo have many enemies outside the safety of this little camp of ours. Jolene could find any _one_ of them and lead them right back to us."

Link considered it. "You could move the camp."

" _Could,_ " Aveil echoed, "if we had somewhere else to go."

"My prudent big sister is right on that one," Kotake admitted. "This little valley we found is too perfect to abandon. This nice big fort was here, and there is a fresh stream we get all our water from not even a half day's ride North of here. It might sound sad, Mr. Link, but we have nowhere else to go. This must remain our home."

Aveil nodded along. "And should we need to… we will defend it."

Link leaned against the wall and folded his arms across his chest to consider the girls' words. He almost bothered asking if Jolene would really risk all their lives just out of some petty revenge… but Link had been in her presence long enough to know that of _course_ she would do such a thing. The woman was, amongst many other things, malicious and cruel. She'd likely trade every one of her 'sisters' lives if there were something to be gained in it. "Regardless of what your former leader's intentions are, she's a few days riding away from escaping the desert yet," Link said. "You have the time to prepare."

"Preparing would be easier if the choosing wasn't so… complicated," Aveil said. "We need a leader. Soon." Her eyes moved to Kotake and narrowed. "It might have been _me_ if my… _sweet sister_ here wasn't so actively working against me."

Kotake put up her hands in mock hurt. "Who? Me? Sissy… you know I would never do such a thing." Her lips curled into a grin. "I just don't see why it shouldn't be _me_ is all."

"You know they would never vote you in, Kotake…"

The younger woman's brow wrinkled. "It's not fair! I know some of them call me 'Crazy Kotake'! I _know_ that's why I won't get to be leader. I never did anything crazy! Never never never!"

Aveil stared, her expression wry.

Kotake blushed. "Well, maybe a few things… some violent things here and there…" Her lips pouted. "It's _still_ not fair."

"You don't even had a front runner?" Link asked.

"Well, Telma has the best claim it would seem," Aveil explained. "She is a good fighter, strong, and she is second oldest in camp."

"Telma is _boring_ ," Kotake said with a flick of her hair. "And not the sharpest thing, either."

"There are some here who would _prefer_ a boring, dull leader, sister. Especially after Jolene…"

"Some, sure," Kotake admitted. "But what about a young one with a sharp tongue and a pretty smile?" She smiled then, a big toothy thing that Link assumed was her prettiest. He had to laugh. Kotake turned a frown on him. "Don't be mean, Mr. Link!"

"Sorry." He looked between the two of them. "So the choosing isn't going well… is there anything I can do to speed it along?"

Aveil pushed off the windowsill. "Actually…"

Kotake jolted to her feet. " _Yes_ , Mr. Link. There is." She moved beside him and slipped her arm beneath his.

A second later, Aveil was at his other side, taking his free hand and cupping it in her own, casting a scowl on her shorter sister across his chest. "You defeated Jolene, Link. That has earned you quite a good deal of credibility amongst many of my sisters here in camp. They have seen your strength and your courage. If you were to pledge yourself to my cause-"

" _Or mine_!" Kotake was quick to add.

" _Either_ of our causes… it would certainly help sway the tide in our favor, and the choosing would be at an end soon enough."

Link looked between the two women clutching to his arm and hand. "You… you want _me_ to choose?"

Aveil smiled. Kotake nodded enthusiastically.

"I… you're keeping me here as a _hostage_. You've kidnapped me and locked me up, and now you want me to be the deciding factor in which of you gets to be the new leader?"

"Funny, huh?" Kotake giggled.

"We know we are asking much of you after the way you've been treated," Aveil began, softly stroking at his hand. "But keep in mind, Link, that some of us have been… very kind to you."

"Not fair!" Kotake protested. "I would have slept with you too, Mr. Link, if I'd had the chance that night in the tent after I'd captured you! If you hadn't been a bad little prisoner and squirmed free of my ropes, I would have taken you myself!" She pouted her lips and looked between Link and her older sister before a mischievous twinkle stole across her vibrant eyes. "Actually… it's only _fair_ that you and I should have some… alone time." She giggled. "You know, Mr. Link. To _ourselves_."

"Don't be ridiculous, Kotake," Aveil said.

"Of course _you_ don't want me and Mr. Link to be together, big sis," Kotake began with a sly grin. "You already had him all to yourself and now you don't want to share! Share and maybe even the odds on which one of us he picks to support for leader!"

Link lifted his hands between the two girls, hoping to conciliate some of the rising tension in the room. "Look, I really don't-"

Kotake moved so quickly, Link wasn't even sure what had happened till it was far too late to react. She was, perhaps, the smallest of the Gerudo, and with that size came both superior speed and agility, which Kotake used to her advantage then in full. She darted across the gap between Aveil and herself, a flash of green silks and copper hair billowing in her trail, and the next thing any of them knew, was sprinting off with the ring of keys Aveil had hooked around her waistband. " _Kotake_!" Aveil shouted after the younger woman, dashing off to follow at her heels, but when Kotake reached the room's door, she stopped, turned back with a grin, and tossed the ring of keys outside. Aveil shook her head and muttered something as she shouldered past her sister into the hall. The moment she'd gone, though, Kotake slammed the door shut. It locked in place with an audible _click_.

"What are you doing!?" Aveil protested as she stepped to the bars now separating the two of them and fixed Kotake with a reproachful look. "I'm just going to open it back up, you foolish little thing."

"Are you, big sis?" Kotake taunted. "Without this?" She lifted her hand. A key, clearly removed from the ring, was squeezed between her thumb and forefinger.

" _Kotake!_ "

But to that, the young woman only laughed. "Looks like Mr. Link and I are all locked up together in here, and the only key…" She slipped the little sliver of steel down between the silks hugging her breasts. "…is in here with _me_."

"Give me that key," Aveil demanded.

"Nope."

" _Kotake_ …"

"Still a 'no', Aveil, sorry."

Aveil's cheeks flushed as she looked between her sister and then back to Link over her shoulder. After a long moment of silent fuming, her shoulders slumped and she said, "You have _one_ hour, Kotake."

"I have as long as I want, sissy," Kotake corrected. "I have the _key_. Remember?"

"One hour," Aveil repeated, "Or I swear I'll scale the fortress from outside and climb down in through the window."

Kotake laughed. "That I would like to see, my sweet sister."

Aveil shook her head, spun on her heel, and stomped off back into the shadows of the stairwell. When she'd gone, Kotake turned back to face Link with an absolutely delighted smirk sketched across her face. "Pretty clever, Mr. Link, aren't I?"

Link forced an uneasy smile. _Clever, sure_ _…_ _but are you clever enough to keep that key from me?_ His eyes fell to her chest. Somewhere beneath all that green silk, his freedom awaited in the form of a little steel plug that could open the door keeping him prisoner.

"If I _weren_ _'_ _t_ clever," Kotake began, sauntering across the room, putting, it seemed, a little extra sway in each of her steps, "I would think you're gawking at my breasts, Mr. Link. But, of course, you and I know that's not true. You want the _key_ , not the flesh around it. Is that so, Mr. Link, you cruel thing?"

Link only sighed. He'd never been very good at hiding his intentions. "I want the key," he confessed.

Though the answer seemed to be what Kotake had been expecting, her expression still darkened with disappointment. "Do you loath your captivity so much, Mr. Link? Truly? Is it so terrible being kept here with pretty girls like myself lusting after you?"

"All men have a yearning to be free."

"Oh? I hear all men have _other_ 'yearnings' as well."

Link swallowed. "That might be true… but one without the other…"

"Ah, I see." Kotake had closed the distance between them by then. Her hands came up reaching for his chest, the tips of her fingers lightly stroking across his nipples and up to his collarbone. "Freedom and love. Certainly, the two together are best, but… what if you only _could_ have one, Mr. Link? Would you truly choose to be alone without chains then to be _loved_ with them?" One of her hands slipped down his belly and played with his waistband.

_Careful,_ Link told himself. His heart was already quickening, and with every playful little stroke of Kotake's fingers against his flesh, he felt his mind numbing, his will diminishing, his body wanting to take over and give itself entirely to his captor. He reached for Kotake's wrist and pried it from his waistband. "You can't possibly hope to keep me here forever, Kotake… can you? What are your sisters saying out there? What's to become of me? Tell me."

"We mean to keep you," Kotake said, wrestling her hand free to return to his waistband. "If you must know, Mr. Link, there it is. We want you to ourselves. Even though _I_ know you're sweet and kind, the others think of you as a threat if you were to be released. Your tongue could spread word of our location and our ways, so… unless you're willing to consent to having that pesky tongue _removed_ … it is here you will stay. Now…" Her fingers slipped inside his breeches-

-and Link plucked her hand away again. "But _you_ call me 'sweet and kind'. So if you were voted leader of the camp…"

"I'm many things, but a liar is not one of them, Mr. Link. I won't deny it. Even if you help me become leader, I would not release you. I think you're handsome and strong and brave and my poor heart would be broken now if I were to lose you."

Link sighed, turned from her, put his hand to his brow as he paced back across the carpeting. _I_ _'_ _m never leaving this place,_ he thought with a pang of dismay in his chest. _None of them will ever allow it._

"Don't be sad, Mr. Link," Kotake chirped as she hurried up beside him and slipped her arm around his. "If I am leader, I will be very good to you. I'll take these quarters for myself, and you and I will ride and hunt by day and laugh and make love by night." When that didn't appease him, Kotake went on. "And… and I can even take you out to Hyrule from time to time. Like little vacations. Surely you would like that, wouldn't you, Mr. Link?"

"You'll take me… with ropes wrapping me from head to toe, I imagine."

"Well… I would have to be sure you don't mean to flee me any longer."

"Kotake, I'll _never_ not want to be free. Don't you understand that? I'm not going to just _forget_ I want my freedom."

Kotake frowned. "You _will_ , Mr. Link! It just takes time! Now stop this pacing so I can kiss you! I want to taste your lips again." She slipped in front of him and tried taking hold of his face, but Link pulled away and simply headed back to pace the other way. Kotake trailed after him like a leashed dog. "Mr. Link! Stop! Aveil truly _might_ just come crawling in through the window after an hour, and if that's so, I mean to have had you by then! Come here to me! Come now, Mr. Link!" She grabbed at his wrist and he yanked it away. She stomped her foot and grabbed again, but Link moved his arm aside to avoid her grasping little fingers. By then, Kotake nostrils were flaring and her cheeks ran a dark red. " _Mr. Link!_ "

"Order up some guards and have them bind me," Link told her. "That's the only way you'll get to 'have me', Kotake."

"Why are you such a stubborn thing!?" She tried grabbing for his waist, but Link hopped back on his heels to slip from her grasp. Kotake growled. " _Oooo_! You are making me so angry, Mr. Link… maybe I _will_ have you bound up good and tight. Is that what you want to force me to do? Hm? Have you roped down like a beast!?"

"I _want_ that key."

Kotake's brow lifted. "Oh?" She slipped her fingers between her breasts and came up with the key a moment later. "Then come take it, Mr. Link. You're bigger and stronger than little old me. Come and _make_ me give it to you."

Link sighed.

Kotake laughed. "You see. You're heart is too gentle. You know you'd have to hurt me to get it, and you won't do that, will you, Mr. Link?" When he refused to answer, his silence only spurred Kotake's laughter on again. "Or perhaps you fear me. Is that it?"

"Stop. This won't work."

"I'm just a small woman. What could I do to a big strong man like you?" She stretched her arm out to dangle the key below her fingers. "You do want this… right, Mr. Link?"

He reached for it-

-and Kotake caught him by the wrist and pulled him towards her. Link stumbled over his own feet, but when he twisted to catch his balance, Kotake flung herself onto his back, wrapping his torso in her arms and legs. Her momentum carried them back a few steps till Link's legs caught the edge of the big bed hugging the far wall. His shin clashed against the thing's wooden trim, and he went spilling down atop it with Kotake still latched firmly to his back. When they landed, he felt her wiry little arms worming around as her legs shifted to clamp down on his sides. When he rolled to remove her, she pinned him down with his back against the mattress, her legs wrapping his waist, her hands laying down against his chest to keep him there.

"Now I've captured you, Mr. Link," she said with a grin. "I've got you right where I want you, too."

"Get off me."

Kotake pouted. "So soon?" Her hand slid down his chest, moved between his legs, gave a squeeze. "Before all the fun?"

Link was readying to try and struggle free from her when his eyes found the door key poking up from between her breasts, but before he'd made a grab for it, Kotake plucked it away and dangled it before him. Link reached for it, but his captor was quick to yank it away, open her mouth, and lay the thing flat against her tongue. She pressed her lips together with the key still inside her mouth and raised her brow.

"Spit it out," Link told her.

Kotake shook her head.

"Would you…" But before he could say anymore, she leaned down to kiss him. Link's eyes closed as their lips met, and for a brief moment, he forgot why he'd been struggling at all. Her mouth was warm and soft and just a tad moist, and as he tasted the sweetness of her lips, Link felt the cool steel of the key poke out between them and tease as his tongue. He tried biting down to steal it away from her in his teeth, but Kotake giggled and pulled her head back with the key still protruding from her mouth. Link reached for it again, but the woman simply snapped her head sideways and released it from her teeth. It went spiraling across the room to land in a tumble atop the carpet.

"There's your precious key, Mr. Link. You'll have to find a way to get to it first, though." She shifted herself around a bit atop his waist, clamping her legs tighter together around him. "Just know, I don't intend to give you up without a fight." He tried to roll, but her knees pinched the sides of his stomach and her hands shoved at his shoulder till it fell flat again. " _Down_ , Mr. Link. Must I tame you?" He tried sitting up and her hands closed on his wrists and pinned him back down. "Such a wild beast you are!" She licked at her lips. "So big and strong and determined!" He bucked his hips to remove her, but that only seemed to rile Kotake up further. "Oh, _yes_ , Mr. Link! You can try to resist me, but I _will_ tame you, you wild beast. I will tame you until you submit, and you're as sweet and docile as a little puppy at my feet."

"Would you stop?" He asked, laying back a moment to catch his breath. "I don't want to hurt you, Kotake."

"I know," she replied with a giggle. "That's why I know I can tame you. You won't struggle and use those big muscles of yours because you're afraid of harming my dainty little body. It's sweet. But it will be your undoing, Mr. Link. I will show _you_ no such mercy." She leaned down and took a little nibble of his flesh between her teeth.

" _Ow_!" Link yelped, twisting his body to free himself from her mouth. "Are you mad?"

Kotake licked her lips. "Only mad with love. And lust." Her hands fell to his collarbone, curled into claws, and raked his flesh all the way down to his waistband, where they tried slipping inside and getting a hold of Link's—increasingly more stiff—cock. He pulled them away, she bit at him again, Link shoved her back, but her hands slipped inside his breeches the moment he did. It was an impossible cycle to defeat, and by the third time, he simply let her take hold of him. Her hands closed tight around his cock and squeezed, and Link involuntarily sucked air through his teeth as a pleasurable warmth heated his groin, stiffening him further.

"There it is!" Kotake cheered. "Is it so horrible having my little hands on your big serpent, Mr. Link? Must you resist me so ferociously when all I want is to pleasure you?" Her fingers squeezed and loosened, squeezed and loosened, and when she gave him a little tug and stroke, there was no stopping his erection coming in full. As Link ran stiff as a board, Kotake tore his breeches string loose and yanked them down to free his eager member. Her eyes fell upon him and widened amorously. " _Oh_."

"Stop…" Link muttered, but his body wanted anything _but_ an end then, and he didn't trust his tongue to speak on his behalf any further. He pressed his lips together and made to retreat from the bed…

…but Kotake had started stroking him again, and Link was helpless but to lay back and gape at the ceiling as his whole body grew flushed and warm.

Kotake giggled. "My my, Mr. Link. You've lost total control of yourself now, haven't you? Is this where the reins of a man's heart lie, or only his body? Is this the way to steer you to my will?" Her hands squeezed tight around him and Link moaned. "I like you like this, Mr. Link. You're much less stubborn and much more… _obedient_." She started stroking again, long, tight strokes that worked his cock up and down from its base to its head and back. One of her hands slipped and curled down around his scrotum, giving a little tickle. "Do you love me, Mr. Link?"

_Yes_ , some creature born from lust and pleasure inside of him almost shouted. Link pressed his lips tighter together to keep the word from escaping.

Kotake's light laughter only spurred him on as she went on stroking and squeezing and stroking again, her slender fingers moving about every inch of him below the waist, testing and poking and groping as Link laid flat on his back, paralyzed with pleasure. When he felt her warm lips press lightly against the head of his cock, though, there was no turning back. He took fistfuls of the sheets and filled the room with his moaning as orgasm swept through him, tingling his limbs and numbing his head and catching fire in his groin. He felt his seed shoot away from him in three, wonderful geysers, then more trickle down over his flesh. He pressed his head back against the bed and laid still as stone as the last of it passed over and through him.

When he was finally able to open his eyes again, Kotake was watching him from her post beside his stomach with a satisfied little smirk. In her hands, his seed still lay dripping. "Did I please you, Mr. Link?" She asked. "It certainly _seems_ like I did." She tittered and glanced at his cock, but when her eyes found it, they narrowed angrily. "Mr. Link! Your serpent is shrinking! Make him stand up straight again! I'm not done with him!"

"I… don't control that, Kotake."

She turned her annoyed glare on him. "What do you mean!? Are you playing a trick on me, Mr. Link!? I'm not done with you! I want to take you inside me. Make yourself _big_ again! I demand it!"

He was trying to figure out a way to explain a man's body to Kotake when Aveil returned to them and saved him from the awkwardness of that particular conversation. Only her appearance did not bring the relief to Link it should have, for Aveil wore a dark and apprehensive expression as she stepped to the barred entrance and took hold of it. "Kotake," she called to her younger sister. "You have to open the door now."

Even Kotake seemed to sense something wrong. She slipped off the bed and stood facing Aveil. "Why? What's happened?"

"A rider from the other camp. Levana." Aveil sighed. "She comes with news of our… escaped sister."

"Jolene? What did she do!?"

"We will talk downstairs. Levana is waiting." Aveil's eyes moved to Link and narrowed. It was only then Link realized his breeches were still pulled down around his thighs. "I suppose you should come as well, Link. This likely concerns you." She held his eyes a moment. "Should I send for a pair of manacles and fetters, or will you behave yourself?"

"He'll behave," Kotake answered for him. "I know how to get control of him now." She glanced at him, laid a hand on his breeches, winked.

Aveil didn't seem happy with the answer, but nodded her acquiescence nonetheless. "Alright. Meet us downstairs as soon as you can be… ready." Her almond eyes flicked once more to Link, and he could have sworn there was some faint trace of disappointment there, but then she was gone, and it was only him and Kotake left to gather themselves and head downstairs.

"What do you think happened?" Link asked as Kotake found him a loose silk shirt to pull down over his head and cover his bare torso.

Kotake tucked his shirt into his waistband. "Let us hope nothing yet, Mr. Link." She leaned up on the tips of her toes to kiss his mouth. "You and I have unfinished business, and if there is trouble coming our way… well, I'll be forced to kidnap you and hide you away somewhere else, won't I?" She laughed, gave him another squeeze between the legs, and turned to saunter off with her fingers still hooked beneath his waistband. "Come now, Mr. Link. And behave yourself. Levana leads the camp us girls fled from. She's not as sadistic as Jo, but she's got… a cruelty of her own. I wouldn't anger her."

With no other choice before him, Link went. _No one can be as bad as Jolene,_ he thought as Kotake led him by the waistband.

_…_ _can they?_


	12. Chapter 12

She looked different than the other girls. Where Aveil and Kotake and the rest had traces of varying intensity of the famed red that streaked and colored the Gerudo's hair, this new woman, Levana, had none. She was of average height and build, and her hair was cropped short and styled at the front. It was the color of sand, and as Link looked upon it, he could not stave away the notion that it _was_ sand; a little blonde dune swooping up from the back of the woman's head and apexing at an oiled and jeweled twist above her brow. She wore a vest of boiled leather over a plain white blouse and cream trousers. Her boots were dark and salt-stained. When she looked at Link, her eyes were pale flecks of blue amidst her tanned complexion, and they narrowed on him with a look that was as shrewd as it was curious.

"You're the troublemaker." Her voice was soft, barely more than a whisper, and Link had to strain to hear her. "I've heard much about you."

Instead of answering, Link simply followed Kotake into the little meeting room the Gerudo had set up to intercept their guests. It was a dark cube nestled into the southwestern quadrant of the fortresses' first floor. The long windows carved into the stone wall's south side pooled golden light in strips across the carpeted floor, but the room was otherwise awash in shadow. It made for an ominous atmosphere for the new 'guests' cluttered around the table and chairs. There were three of them: Levana and two others who more closely resembled the women who'd captured Link with dark skin and auburn hair and veiled faces. From their shadowed visage, intent eyes watched Link join alongside Kotake, Aveil, and Telma as the four sat themselves opposite the new girls.

"Hello, Levana," Aveil greeted with a bow of her head, and Kotake and Telma were quick to add their own pleasantries. The girls' demeanors had grown strange though, Link thought. This new woman was, clearly, someone they either respected or feared… or both.

Levana's red lips lifted to a half-smile. "Hello, sisters. It's been so long since we've seen one another last…" Her eyes briefly flicked from girl to girl. "Telma, are you still as strong as a boar?"

Telma chuckled. "I am, sister. _Stronger_ , truly."

A soft, throaty, sound came from the blonde Gerudo that might have been her own version of laughter. "And Kotake, my my. Look how you've grown. You're a woman now, I see. You've even got your own little mounds spurting up from your chest there beneath your silks."

Kotake's lips twisted from side to side. She offered a curt nod of recognition, but otherwise looked to be struggling a great deal to hold her tongue.

"And Aveil, sweet sister of mine." Levana's voice was as soft as ever, but their was a sharpness to her words as she looked upon the dark-haired woman Link had slept with. "Beauty truly knows no boundaries, no? You are as pleasant on the eyes as the day you departed. I've missed you."

"As we've all missed you, Levana." Aveil offered a wan smile. "Though, admittedly, I don't think any of us expected to see you again so… soon."

"Nor did I expect to have to come see you. But we both know why I'm here." The woman turned her icy blue eyes on Link again. "All this trouble… started because of _you_. Well, at least you are as handsome as I've heard. More trouble has been stirred over less in the past, I'm sure. Still…" She folded her arms against her chest and swept a look over Aveil and the rest. "Do you always bring your prisoners into meetings?"

"Link isn't exactly our… 'prisoner'," replied Aveil, tugging at her silks uncomfortably.

Levana smirked. "That much is clear. I don't see any chains on his hands and feet. I don't see a collar around his neck. I _do_ see, however, a look of longing in the man's eyes." She leaned closer towards Link. "You don't wish to be here, do you?"

Link held her gaze. He could feel the eyes of the other three boring into him from his side, awaiting his answer. "I… I'm not sure."

"You can speak freely," Levana assured him. "Tell it true. Are you a captive here?"

Link glanced to the others. Telma looked on indifferently from the end of the table, but both Aveil and Kotake's eyes housed an eagerness that bordered on desperation. For whatever reason, Link felt loyalty to them in that moment, and answered simply, "They have not held me here at the point of a sword. And as you've said, they haven't chained me up."

"That wasn't an answer," Levana said, sitting back in her chair. "But it's told me more than you intended, I'm sure."

"Look, Levana," Aveil began, "Whatever Jolene told you-"

"Was lies upon lies upon lies. Yes. I already know that. I simply wanted to hear the prisoner speak for himself."

Aveil shared a puzzled look with her sisters. "You… know that Jolene lied? But… how?"

The blonde Gerudo's smirk resurfaced, a mischievous twinkle brightening her icy eyes. "Come now, Aveil. When Jolene started rallying up you girls to leave my camp so many moons ago… did you really think I was just going to let you go? I've had an informant planted in your ranks since the day you dug your heels into your horses and fled me. I've known your every move since the beginning."

All three of the girls' mouths gaped as they looked between one another before settling their widened eyes on Levana. It was Kotake who broke their stunned silence. "You… you've been spying on us the whole time? And you never came after us?"

"Why would I come after you?" Levana asked with a shrug of her shoulders. "Unlike Jolene, and fortunately for you, even when we have our disagreements, I still think of you all as my sisters, and I _love_ you like a sister should. I'll admit… it hurt when so many of you chose to follow Jolene away from camp, but… it was what you freely chose. I respected it."

Aveil, Kotake, and Telma all lowered their heads, and Link saw something etched into the features of their pretty faces he had not see before in his entire duration as their captive: shame.

Levana continued, "Don't bother asking who my spy was. It could be any one of you. It could even be one of you in this very room. It doesn't matter. What they did, they did out of loyalty to me, and I assure you they caused you no duress. In truth, they actually might have saved you trouble. When our dear rogue sister, Jolene, came trotting back to camp yesterday evening, I was, to say the least, quite surprised to see her. We barely had time for pleasantries, however, for she wasted no time filling my ears with a tale of betrayal and injustice and murder… all of which, because of my spy, I knew was false the moment it left her lips."

"Levana," Aveil began, clutching her hands together and leaning forth. "I don't know what your informant told you, but you must know this: Jolene has grown monstrous. She's been imprisoning us, whipping us… some of us, not long ago, have even gone missing and never returned. She's insane. She's-"

"I know what our sister is and what she's become, Aveil, I assure you of that." Levana glanced to the southern window and held her eyes upon the big dune their cresting up to the outside world. "Do you wish to know what our dear sister wanted of me? What her 'master plan' was to deal with the 'treacheries' you, supposedly, all committed? She wanted me to gather our best riders and warriors, return here… and slaughter you all in the night like wild beasts."

"Goddesses," Kotake muttered, her hands clutching for her heart.

Aveil shook her head. Telma pounded a fist against the tabletop. Link stayed quiet and watched.

"I let her talk for as long as she would," Levana continued. "I listened. I did my best to stomach her visions of cruelty and conquest. And when she talked no longer, I asked her for a night to think on it. When she retreated to the quarters I offered her, I _did_ rally our strongest fighters, but it wasn't here I brought them, it was to her room to shackle and lock her and her twisted mind away in our dungeons. But Jolene was not there. Cleverly, she'd slipped out of the room I'd provided her and had taken refuge in an adjacent tower." The blonde Gerudo's eyes stared off into nothing. "I saw her then, sisters. Outside the room, across the village. She was watching from the shadowed alcove of a window. Her nose was always so large and crooked, like a vultures, and from the shadows I saw it protruding… pointing at me… pointing with contempt.

"We rushed over to capture her as quickly as we could, but by then she'd long since fled. I believed, at the time, that that was to be the last we ever saw of our dear, deranged, sister… but as the search of the camp drew to an end with no results, Jolene returned once more. She crested the long hill leading up out of the village on her big, black courser and reared the thing's front hooves into the air. 'I'll be back,' she roared down upon us, 'Do you hear me, Levana? I'm coming back. And next time I'm bringing an _army!_ '."

"An… army?" Kotake croaked. The girl was nibbling on her bottom lip and fidgeting with a strand of copper hair. "W-what does _that_ mean?"

"We all know what that means," Levan explained. Her eyes moved between the girls with steely resolve. "There is only one 'army' in the surrounding lands that she could be speaking of. An army that would like nothing more than to see our entire lineage eradicated from history…"

"I don't… understand," Aveil confessed.

Telma scratched at her head and Kotake clung to Aveil's arm, digging her fingers deeply into her sister's flesh. Link looked from them to Levana. In the blonde woman's expression, he found the answer she was hinting at. "Hyrule," he said, drawing all eyes in the room his way. "You're talking about the Hylian army that guards the castle of Hyrule. You're talking about soldiers."

Levana nodded. "I believe Jolene is headed there for Hyrule Caslte right now as we speak. I believe she means to give the Hylians what they've always so dearly wanted: an end to the Gerudo."

"You think she means to lead them back _here_!?" Kotake shouted. "But, but that's not fair! They've got big steel armor and big sharp sword and spears and horses and, and, and-"

"And if Jolene acts as their guide and helps them find us, they'll destroy us," Aveil finished for her younger sister.

A heavy silence lingered in the room after Aveil's foreboding declaration, each of the Gerudo, seemingly, lost in their own thoughts, their brows drawn pensively, their eyes lingering on nothing. It wasn't until Levana set her gaze back upon Link did the silence end. "So you see, captive, you're sudden arrival has stirred up quite the problem."

"It's not Mr. Link's fault!" Kotake protested.

"Calm yourself, Kotake, I'm not laying the blame solely on his shoulders. This is Jolene's doing. However, none of it would have started had he not come trotting through the desert and fallen into your captivity in the first place. What, exactly, _were_ you doing amongst our sands in the first place, prisoner?"

_A white rose, sprouting miraculously in the barren climate of the desert, a gift to win a young girl_ _'_ _s heart._ Link shook his head. "I was turned around in a sand storm."

"Turned around from _what_?" Her eyes bore into Link's own.

He held them. In the silence between them, tension rose until it was nearly palpable before Aveil interjected and defused it. "It doesn't matter. We need to figure out what to do about this."

"Firstly," the blonde woman began, "I'm heading back to the village. And I'm taking your prisoner with me."

Link exchanged looks with Aveil and Kotake. Neither of them seemed to know how to respond to the other woman's words, so Link spoke for them. "And why is that?"

"Because once I have _you,_ I think my sweet sisters here will be more willing to agree to my offer."

"Offer?" Aveil echoed.

"I want you girls to come back and rejoin the rest of us at our village. I want to put this silly past behind us and join together as one clan. As it used to be. As it should be again."

Kotake raised an eyebrow. "Come… _back_?"

"I don't know if Jolene will hold true to her claim of gathering an army," Levana explained, "but if she does, our chances of surviving the… 'purge' the Hylians would bring upon us would greatly increase if we were together once more." The woman stood from her chair, laid her hands flat on the table, and looked between the girls seated on its opposite side. "My sisters, I ask that you gather your things and say your goodbyes to this little valley you've called 'home' for so long. Too long. Come back to your _true_ home. Come back and join me, and we will put our past behind us and be family once more."

"Family…" Kotake muttered, her eyes falling to her feet as she twiddled her thumbs.

Aveil seemed less taken by the blonde's call to unite. She rose herself and eyed the woman shrewdly. "Forgive me, Levana, but how can we be certain you aren't acting together _with_ Jolene? How do we know you're not just leading us back to the village to surround and capture us?"

"You don't," Levana admitted. "Which is why I'm taking _him_. You two seem to care for him. If you want to _continue_ caring for him, you'll have to follow after us. You know where I'm going. You know what my offer is. I won't make it twice."

Telma rose. "And if Jolene brings a Hylian army down on us?"

Levana's hands closed to fists atop the table. "Then we fight."

" _Fight_?" Kotake yelped. "Against an army of trained, armed, and armored soldiers!?"

"That's right. It's either that or the alternative, of course."

"Which is?"

"Die," Levana answered, nodded to the two women flanking her, and moved to the end of the room. At the doorway, she faced Link and beckoned him near. When he did not immediately come forth, the woman sighed, gestured to her companions, and instantly they moved to take him by the arms and escort him. Aveil and Kotake fell in alongside the women and before Link could voice even a word of protest, they were all moving back outside as one, large convoy.

The high noon sun was harsh against his eyes as the women led Link outside into the swirling winds and the hot sands. Levana's pace was brisk and militant as she marched them out of the fortress, down the slope towards the village, and around the big wall to the stables, where a trio of saddled horses awaited. When they arrived, Levana spun on her sandaled heels and took Link by the arm, pulling him close to herself. Only a foot of sand separating them then, she looked him over more closely from head to toe, though what exactly she was examining him _for_ , Link could not say.

"You don't have to take him, Levana," Aveil said.

"Mr. Link is _ours_ ," Kotake added.

"The prisoner is mine now," the blonde informed them. "If you want him back, you know where to find me. I don't think it will take you girls longer than a night to gather up your things and make your peace with the land. I expect you all in the village by tomorrow evening."

Aveil and Kotake exchanged looks, but neither seemed to know how to 'bargain' Link back into their hands. Aveil said, "He's done nothing wrong, Levana. He's a good man."

Kotake jabbed a finger forward. "So don't _hurt_ him!"

"He'll be fine," she assured them. "Come and see for yourself tomorrow. There is much more we need discuss anyway."

"My horse," Link said, nodding to the stable at the end of the row, where Epona's big dark eyes were watching from behind the wooden pilings.

Levana looked the white-maned steed over. "A good beast, clearly. My sisters can bring her along when they join us tomorrow." She faced Link and looked him over again. "Put your hands together," she commanded, reaching into one of her saddlebags and retrieving a length of rope.

"You don't have to bind me."

"I don't think you're my enemy. That doesn't mean I trust you. Put your hands together."

Link sighed, but did. The blonde woman looped the thick hempen rope tightly around his wrists several times before cinching and knotting it. She pressed his bound hands down against his waist and used the rope's slack to wrap his arms tight against his torso before knotting that off as well. "You'll ride with me," she informed him, and her companions moved close so the three of them could help work him up onto the saddle of her horse. When he was seated, Levana climbed up herself and swung down behind him. Her arms came around his sides to take the horse reigns. Link could do nothing then but watch, finding himself helplessly bound up once again.

"Mr. Link," Kotake called to him, "Don't you worry. We'll come right away, alright?"

Link forced a smile on the young woman, if nothing else then to placate her apprehension. His eyes floated to Aveil, who stood silently at her sister's side with her lips pressed tightly together and her arms folded. He nodded, but Aveil only stared, her dark eyes narrowed with consternation.

"Tomorrow," Levana said to the Gerudo women that had been Link's only friends amidst the big, hostile sprawl of the desert for the last few days. "We'll be waiting, my sisters."

With that, she spurred her horse to a canter and rode them down the length of tents. The channel ended, the slope of the valley began, and when it had been crested, the Gerudo and their camp was as good as gone, for the endless unknown of the horizon was there waiting for them; calling to them. As they moved to meet it, Link could not help but wonder if he'd ever see the girls he was leaving behind again.

* * *

**X**

* * *

It wasn't until they'd ridden hard and long beneath the day's clear cobalt sky that Link's new captors slowed their pace from a cantor to a trot to give the horse's a bit of respite from the ride. By then, the rolling dunes of the valley Link had been kept captive in were far behind them, and only long, empty, plains stretched away from them in every direction. Faintly to the East, Link could see the sand mounding up again, but he estimated they were still the better part of a half-day's ride away. His wrists were soar from being bound up so tightly, but when Levana slowed their horse, the ride was less bumpy, and Link was thankful for that. He sat still, rubbing his fingers togethers and listening to the soft _clumps_ of hooves beating against sand below.

"Here," Levana's soft voice came over his shoulder, and a moment later of skin of water was being angled around his side and up to his mouth. Link parted his lips and gratefully drank long and deep from the nozzle until the cool water trickled down his chin. His captor pulled the flask away and swiped at his lips with the back of her hand to dry them.

"Thank you."

They rode on in silence for a bit after that. Link watched as the other two riders slowly outpaces Levana and himself, though whether that was them speeding up, or her slowing _down_ , Link could not be sure. Either way, when enough distance separated their horse from the rest, Levana spoke again.

"You know, prisoner, though many things Jolene and my spy told me could not have been further apart from one another, some aspects of their story did, in fact, line up quite nicely. Some things, then, _must_ have been true…"

_What is she getting at?_ Link wasn't sure, and so decided to keep quiet. Below his bare chest, where his hands were bound up tight against his stomach, Levana loosened her grip on the horse's reigns and allowed her own hands to lay against his. Behind him, Link felt the woman's thighs scoot a bit closer against his own, her crotch pressing ever so slightly against his behind.

"From what I hear, you hypnotized my sisters with your masculinity." A soft chuckle from the woman's lips pressed warm air against the back of Link's neck. "And your man-cock put them under your spell." Her hands slid beyond his and groped at his inner thighs instead.

_Not another one._ "What are you doing?"

She ignored his question. Her fingers rubbed at his legs. "Do you know what I want… Link? That's your name, isn't it? Link… Link of Hyrule… do you know what I want?"

"Whatever it is, I assure you its not between my legs," he told her, shifting his weight uncomfortably atop the horse in attempt to squirm free of her probing fingers.

She laughed again. "But in a way, it is." She was quiet a moment, then asked, "What do you know of us Gerudo, Link?"

"What do you mean?"

"I'm sure you know Ganondorf is one of us. Some, even, call him our 'King'."

"Yes. I've heard that."

"And did you also hear he was the only male born to our people in one-hundred years time?"

"I've heard the Gerudo are mostly all women, so… yes, I believe that. It seems likely enough."

"Isn't that cruel? Fertility among our people is low enough. It takes a… great deal of effort for us to even _have_ a child, and when we do, they are nearly all but guaranteed to be female. No one knows why. Perhaps, it is the Goddesses' cruel idea of a jest. One male every hundred years? And when is he finally born to us… he is evil incarnate. He is a dark and twisted thing, and his reputation has utterly _demolished_ our own amongst all the other peoples of these lands." Her hands slid further together between his legs, her fingers dangerously close to stroking at his manhood. "Isn't that cruel, Link? Don't you think that's cruel?"

"It is… unfair," he admitted with sincerity. He'd heard tales of the Gerudo growing up. None of them had been good. Their people were unanimously thought of as an evil desert tribe that hunted, captured, or killed innocents, and because the men they conjured into the world every few hundred years were such monstrous things, they were to be avoided at all costs.

"Thank you for admitting that. You have a strong mind to be able to look past the prejudices against my people. A strong mind… amongst a number of other strong features, I suppose." Her hands _did_ close around his cock then, giving it a little squeeze before softly stroking at his shaft. "The answer to my question, then… do you know what it is? Do you know what I _want_ , Link?"

He still wasn't entirely sure, but he knew what his _body_ was starting to want. The woman's hands were slowly but surely stirring his arousal. "…no."

"I want an end to it. An end to this nonsense 'war' between my people and the rest of the world. And the only way to do that… is to prove we can birth a man into this world that is _not_ evil incarnate. What we need is a _second_ son… one whom can stand as Ganondorf's opposite. One who can prove once and for all that the Gerudo are not a cursed people… only an unlucky and misunderstood one.

"We capture men. That much is true. But the men whom end up kidnapped are always old, fat, fools. Their seed is as weak as their minds, their cocks as flaccid as their courage. What we've needed… and now, I believe, what we've found is a strong man. A _good_ man. And if my sisters' hearts are true, we've found one. A young, strong, healthy man with a sharp mind and a good heart. Link… Link of Hyrule… _you_ are the key to freeing my people."

Link considered her words. "You want me to help make you a child?"

"That's right. I intend to keep you as my… 'prisoner', and to fill myself up with your seed every single _night_ if I have to until I get what my people need. Your son. The child who will bring my people back into good standing with the rest of the world. The babe who will give me and my sisters peace at last." She squeezed again at his cock. "I need your seed, Link. My _people_ need your seed."

"And if I can't give you a child?"

"Then I'll keep you locked away until you do."

Link's hands curled to fists. "And what if that _never_ happens!? What if the 'curse' on your people is true!? What if you can't have a man born to you for another hundred years!? You'd keep my a prisoner for that long!?"

"If you have to be bound for one-hundred years, then I'll _bind_ you for one-hundred years," Levana said, her hands squeezing hard around his cock until it hurt. "You can _save_ my people, Link. Even if it's a small chance, it is a chance nonetheless. One we need dearly. Surely, you will see that in time."

Link shook his head. He couldn't believe it. After all he'd done… after everything he'd been through… _still_ he was under threat of being locked away for the rest of his life. His anger got the best of him then, and he growled words back at his captor he knew he shouldn't, but was far too frustrated with the woman to stop himself. "If you're willing to enslave me for the rest of my days… then maybe the Gerudo _are_ an evil people."

Levana was quiet a moment. Her hands pulled away from Link's crotch. A moment later, a thin steel rod wrapped in leather was lowered before Link's face. "Open your mouth."

Link sighed. "Look, you don't have to- _armmhmf!_ " She wedged the gag tightly between his lips until Link bit down and sunk his teeth into the leather. Behind his head, he could feel her fingers fastening straps, securing his muzzle in place. " _Arrmph!_ "

"Quiet," she commanded. "From now on, if you want the privilege to speak, you'll have to earn it. Until then, your mouth is staying shut."

Link protested, but the leather-wrapped rod mangled his words.

"You can grumble and groan all you want. It's not going to get that gag out. Now you listen to me, Link. My people need you. We need your seed. And we're going to have it. If you can't get me with a child in a month's time, I'll have you try another young, fertile, woman in our village. If you can't put a child in _her_ belly, we'll pair you with someone new. You _must_ give us a son. You _must_ give us a _chance_. And there will be no more talk about 'evil'. We are not an evil people, and your cruel words will only anger the Goddesses and further prolong our suffering by preventing our son from being born. Do you understand me?"

Link chewed at the leather silencing him and jerked at his binds in protest.

Levana took up the horse's reigns again and spurred their steed to a gallop. "You will see. When our son is born, you will see. You think yourself a 'slave' now, but one day you'll think of yourself as something else entirely. When your child puts an end to our suffering, you won't think of yourself as a Gerudo slave…

"You, and everyone else, will hail you as the Gerudo _savior_!"

And with that, Levana spurred them on faster, breaking hard for the horizon, for her village, and for the place that might very well be the last Link would ever see…


	13. Chapter 13

They came upon the village at sunset, when the western stand of dunes were crested with a red and gold aura, and the day's blistering temperature had fallen enough to put a crisp, cool breeze in the air. As Levana spurred their party below a trio of arched pillars, Link watched from atop her horse as buildings and terraces and towers and hovels rose out of the heavy swirl of sand the desert had conjured to, perhaps, conceal the Gerudo village from the outside world. Right away, he knew this place was nothing like the camp he'd been taken from. Jolene and the rest had modest accommodations in their little valley of tents and pavilions, but this village was something else entirely. The buildings rose high, looming over the sandstone streets that intertwined at their feet, and their lofty rooftops stood shoulder-to-shoulder, as if they'd been built to support one another. Sheets of canvas lay draped across wooden planks intermittently down the building's sides, shading their many windows, birthing a dozen dark pools on the belly of any one tower. The architecture looked solid enough, but every brick laid seemed to be chipped and haggard, and it gave the impression that the whole village might just come crumbling down with a strong gust of wind. _Whoever built this place,_ Link thought as their party dipped beneath a stone bridge overhanging the street, _built it long, long ago._

The street wound around a bend, following the curve of a building as it sloped upwards. Levana slowed them to a trot as they came upon the top of the hill, and when they'd moved beneath a massive stone finger jutting up from the earth that must've been the village's central tower, she halted their party and swung down. Link, bound up in ropes, could only watch and wait to see what they intended to do with him. Levana shared a quiet exchange with the girls who'd travelled alongside her before dismissing them, then set the flecks of blue ice that were her eyes on Link.

"I'll be taking you to my quarters tonight," she informed him as she hobbled her horse beneath an awning. "You can fight me along the way, I suppose, though it won't do you any good. I'm not quite the warrior some of my sisters are, but I'm quick and strong enough. And with those ropes wrapping you up… you don't stand a chance against me, Link. So behave yourself."

Link stared down at his captor. With a gag wedged between his teeth, there was little else he could do.

Levana met his glare with a smile. "You might hate me now, but you won't forever. I am a good lover, and my heart can be warm to those whom earn it. Offer me your obedience, Link… and your time in my captivity will not be an unpleasant one. Do you understand? Nod your head if you do."

If only to shut her up, Link nodded.

Levana stepped beside the horse and helped him swing his leg over and slip off the saddle to plant his feet atop the sandstone road. His legs were soar and fatigued from the day's ride, though, and his knees buckled on him the moment he landed. The act would've spilled him to the ground had Levana not slipped an arm around his torso and propped him against herself. It was like that, his weight leaned against her for support, that the two of them sidled around the tower's curved wall and entered through an arched passage carved into the stone.

The base of the tower interior was dark, damp, and cool, not unlike his cell had been back at the Gerudo camp, but they did not spend much time there. Levana hurried them through a room cluttered with shadowed figures Link could only assume were furnishings and into the narrow corridor of a stairwell that wound up around the tower's cylindrical wall. Link groaned against his gag at the site of it. It meant climbing and more climbing, and his thighs and calves would likely be ablaze before long. Levana ignored his grunt of protest and simply tugged at his bound arm till he got moving, though, and without any other choice, Link moved.

The ascent was worse than he'd expected. Apparently, Levana was marching him up to the very top of the thing, and so each time the stairwell flattened out beneath his feet and Link looked hopefully to his captor, she only shook her head and nodded upwards to press on for the next level, and the next, and the next. Strung along the walls at regular intervals, small windows poured silvery moonlight inside, but the trek was otherwise made in darkness. Link had to take several breaks, and, thankfully, Levana allowed them; he might've simply collapsed without the brief lapses of rest.

At a point, he'd started counting the stairs, but at another point, he'd given up. And just when Link was beginning to believe the things had no end, and they surely must be above the clouds and entering the realm of the Goddesses, the stairwell tapered off at a big wooden door with iron studs around its trim. Levana stepped before him and swung the thing back on its hinges, and Link practically threw himself inside, if nothing else than to be rid of the endless climb that had lit a fire in every inch of his legs. He fell graciously upon a carpeted floor, panting against his gag, feeling the sweat drip from his brow and his chest. He'd laid like that for not but a few seconds before the toe of Levana's boot slid beneath his belly and hoisted upwards, flipping him over to his back. He stared up at her, still catching his wind as the woman planted her hands on her hips and narrowed those icy eyes down on him.

"You need to eat," she told him. "You haven't gotten the nourishment you need with my rogue sisters, have you? I need you at your full strength, Link. I need your _seed_ at its full strength." She drummed her slender fingers along her tanned arms. "Get yourself to your knees before me and I'll remove the gag."

Link took a moment to catch the last of his breath, then awkwardly twisted his body about on the carpet till he could work his knees beneath himself. He managed after a few attempts, pushing himself to a kneel, straightening his back, staring defiantly up at his captor and wondering if she would hold true to her word.

"This is your place here," Levana informed him with a nod of her head that sent her little oiled and jeweled swoop of sandy hair shaking above her brow. "On your knees, obeying me. Do you understand?"

Link sunk his teeth a bit more firmly into the leather between them, but made himself nod all the same.

"Until you put a baby boy in my belly, Link, you're _my_ property. Obey me and I will treat you with kindness, generosity, and warmth. _Disobey_ me… and you will be punished." She turned her face from his and Link followed her eyes for the first time towards the room. It was a modest thing for such a lofty position; circular and carpeted, with a single bed in its center and what looked like a balcony beyond a double set of windows and another arched door. Above the door, a hole was carved out of the ceiling, and from it, moonlight came pouring down within to bath a little oval of carpet with silver light. Levana turned towards that light and sauntered beneath it. When her boots planted within the oval of silver, her head angled back and her eyes held intently on the moon above.

Link watched her from his knees across the room. For a moment, she said nothing and did nothing, and the world had gone as quiet as the whispering of a summer's wind. Then Levana began slipping out of her clothing. First the boots were kicked from her feet, then her trousers were slid from her hips, then her vest and blouse were lifted over her head. Then she stood completely naked in the moonlight; the curves of her neck and her shoulder blades and her hips and her butt streaked with the silver and black of night. She lowered to her knees and clasped her hands together at her chest. Her eyes held still on the moon.

She went quiet again for awhile before softly speaking back over her shoulder, "They speak to me sometimes, you know. The Goddesses. I pray to them every night and sometimes they speak to me." Even in the dark, Link could see a serene smile spread across her pretty face. "They sent you to me, Link of Hyrule. I know it. I _believe_ it. They wanted me to have you. They spun the strands of fate and sent that desert storm down upon the world to ensure you ended up in the hands of us Gerudo. And now you are here in _my_ hands. Now… now you are mine entirely. I have your body. Someday, I might have your heart. …tomorrow night, I'll have your seed."

Link swallowed into a throat that had gone as dry as a desert wind. Instinctively, he twisted at his bound wrists and jerked at his arms. Something about the woman's placid expression and the certainty of her voice had stirred a profound uncomfortableness inside him. Jolene had been cruel and twisted, Aveil and Kotake had both lusted after him and their hunger had made them act strangely at times, but this Levana… she actually _believed_ in what she was doing. Somehow, that was worse than anything.

"Tomorrow starts a new cycle of the moon," she went on in her calm monotone. Her hand fell to her bare stomach and patted gently just below her navel. "And a new cycle for me, as well. You will begin fulfilling your duty then." She rose, bowed to the moon, whispered something, and turned to saunter back to him in her nudity. Her breasts rose and she walked, and when stood over him once again, Link hated himself for looking upon them and desiring to touch them. He lowered his head. "You must obey me, " she spoke softly down upon him. " _All_ of you. That means your mind, your manhood… and your mouth. Will you speak evil things if I free your tongue?"

Link shook his head, and Levana reached around to loosen and remove his gag. When the leather bar came from between his teeth, Link shifted his jaw about to work the stiffness from it before lifting his eyes to his captor's.

"Well? You've been shut up all day. What do you have to say, Link?"

It was a good question. Link considered it, but didn't think there was a single word he could conjure from his mind that would sway the woman into considering letting him go, or even doubting her 'beliefs' that he'd been sent to her by the Goddesses. With the concept of freedom temporarily shelved, his thoughts turned to his immediate wants. "Food," he croaked. "And water."

"Water I will provide you," Levana told him, fetching a skin from a table beside her bed. "But you will have to wait on the morrow to feast. It's only one more night. You'll manage. When you wake, a wonderful breakfast will be waiting to fill your nose with its delicious scent, and your stomach with its nourishment." She cocked her head on its side. "…that's _if_ you obey me tonight."

"What do you want from me?"

"I'm going to remove your binds, then you're going to lay down on your belly atop my bed. You can try and fight me, Link of Hyrule, but as I said, in your current condition, you are no match for me. I will defeat you, tame you, and bind you far tighter than you're bound now. Understand?"

"…I understand," he admitted begrudgingly.

"Good." And with that, she slipped a dagger from beneath a book atop the table, worked its hooked blade under his ropes, and cut him free from wrists to arms in one, calculated, motion. "Now go and lie down. Quickly, before you work any wicked thoughts up about trying to get free of me."

Link lifted to his feet with the help of the wall and stood, on his own will and completely unbound, before Levana, and for a heartbeat, he _did_ think of his freedom. Then his eyes fell to the big, soft, bedding awaiting him and his feet moved for it almost of their own volition. He lowered himself onto his stomach as his captor commanded and when his cheek and chest and legs sunk into the feathery mattress, a moan slipped his lips and his eyes fell closed. They opened again quickly, however, for Levana's weight came down on the small of his back almost at once. Link craned his head around to glimpse her seated atop him, straddling his hips. "What are you doing?"

"Quiet," she demanded, slipped her little blade down along the side of his breeches, and cut a long line up them, tearing the cloth fabric with an audible _rrrrrrip_.

Link frowned, "What are-"

" _Quiet,_ Link, or I'll silence you again with a gag. You must obey me. When I tell you not to speak, you will not speak. Now lay still."

Anger coursed briefly though him, but Link staved it off, pressed his lips together, and made himself lay still once more; though he had to take fistfuls of the bedding sheets to keep his frustration in check. The moment he obeyed her, though, Levana stripped his breeches from his waist with a tug, and just like that, Link was as naked as she was, sprawled out on his stomach, the woman's bare ass seated atop his own, the warmth of her flesh pressing firm against him. He nearly protested until realizing the act would only likely put a leather bar back between his teeth, and so resolved to stay quiet with some effort. Levana's hands fell upon his lower back, slid up his sides, and found their way in between his shoulder blades. He felt the woman's weight lean forward over her arms, and then her thumbs and fingers and knuckles were working little circles into his upper back, massaging him deeply. Link tensed only for a moment until the pleasure of the action overtook his uncomfortableness and he simply went limp and allowed her to rub him. She was good at it, her fingers deft, her palms a bit callused from her horse's reigns but soft and firm all the same, and she seemed to know just how long to massage in one place before moving to another. Link's skin was hot and itchy, the blood flowing free to his back thanks to Levana's rubbing, and it wasn't long before his eyes fell shut once again.

"You see," the woman's voice came softly behind him. "If you submit yourself to me, I can treat you good, Link. You need only submit and obey."

She rubbed his back like that for a long time, moving from shoulder to shoulder, down to his lower back to roll her knuckles across the tension there, and back up again to repeat the whole process. Link lay as motionless and calm as still water, the occasional moan or groan sounding from his throat when Levana's hands found a spot in particular need of massaging. When his whole back was heated and itching from the circulation of blood, and Link was as comfortable as he'd been in a long time, she slid herself off his lower back and crawled down beside his legs. Her hands found the knots that had worked themselves into his thighs from all the bondage he'd been in and out of in the last few days and set about untying them with another deep massage. She rubbed his thighs and his hamstrings and his calves and then started massaging her way back again. When she'd rubbed him from hip to ankle three times over, she lifted his lower legs into her lap and massaged the soles of his feet too, rubbing deep circles into his heels and arches.

Link tried keeping his eyes open, but they'd grown heavier and heavier with every rub of every muscle, and one time when they shut, he made to lift them again and could not. Instead, he drifted off into a deep, deep, sleep, in which he dreamt of bringing a white desert rose to a beautiful princess in a castle with pointed ears and golden hair.

* * *

**X**

* * *

He awoke to sunshine and chains.

Levana had, at least, kept her word. Link rolled onto his back, squinting against the harsh morning sun shafting through the balcony window, and found the bedside table filled from edge to edge with a platter of food: apples and apricots; a freshly baked loaf of bread with butter to spread over it; a glass of water, a glass of milk, and a glass of some sort of juice; and between all of that, two plump, juicy, chicken breasts awaited him. Link was salivating before he'd even sat up. When he did, though, he found another 'surprise' waiting for him.

Chains rattled as he swung his legs off the bed, and by the time the morning haze had lifted from his mind and Link could focus on what had happened, he saw he'd been manacled hand and foot while he slept. Thick iron cuffs closed down around his ankles and wrists, and a short length of chain tethered them together. His hands could only stretch out to just inside the width of his shoulders, and when he moved his legs, he figured they'd left him enough slack to walk comfortably enough, but there would be no running, and _certainly_ no riding horseback anytime soon.

It should've made him angry, but the smell of the food beside the bed was impossible to forget, and Link simply scooted to the edge of the mattress, ignored the chains binding his hands and feet, and started eating. The chicken was glazed with some sort of honey, and it was as sweet and filling going down as anything he'd ever had. He devoured it, and moved through the rest of the platter with relentless pace, driven by the emptiness of his stomach. He even downed the three drinks that had been set out for him, swiping at his lips as they trickled from his mouth. When every last bit of the food was gone, bread crumbs and all, Link laid back against the mound of pillows behind him and found rest, despite the chains, easy to come by again. His eyes closed, his breathing slowed, and the nourishment he'd consumed put strength and life back into his muscles.

At some point, the door to the room opened, and Link found Levana standing framed within, smiling at him. "You ate well," she said, crossing to the bed. "That's good, Link. You need to get strong and healthy again."

"Getting 'strong' won't exactly be easy," he said dryly, lifting his hands to rattle his chains. "Why did you chain me?"

"Because you're my prisoner. Why else would I chain you? You must learn to appreciate your bondage, Link. I intend on keeping you in it whenever I can."

"But _why_!?" He snapped. "I'm not going to try and escape. I don't even know where we _are_ …"

"You're not chained to prevent your escape. You're chained to remind you of what you are. A slave. And until you fulfill your duty, you'll stay a slave." She lifted her hands, and Link had been so frustrated with the woman, he hadn't even noticed she was carrying something until that moment. Pinched between her fingers was another circle of iron, this one with some strange band of leather protruding from its rim. "Your collar," she informed him. "While you wear this, you and everyone else, Goddesses included, will know you and your seed belong to me."

Link shook his head. "This is ridiculous. You don't have to put a _collar_ on me like some… like some animal or something!"

"I know I don't _have_ to, Link." She smiled. "And that's precisely why I am. To exert my control and ownership over you. Now lay still."

Link tensed, edging away from the approaching woman and her collar. "No. This is too much. You're going too far, Levana."

"What did we talk about with obedience and disobedience? Do you need punishment?"

Link stared into those pale blue flecks of ice that were Levana's eyes, and he remembered at once his feelings from the previous night. _She believes it,_ he thought, swallowing back his trepidation. _She believes in everything she_ _'_ _s doing._ "…no," Link croaked with a shake of his head. "I don't need… _punishment_."

"Good. Then don't move." She lowered a knee between his legs and leaned forward with the collar unclasped at its hinge. Link glared into the woman's eyes as she locked it around his neck. It was snug enough to touch his skin, but, thankfully, not tight. "There," Levana said. "Is that so bad? …this next part, though, you're not going to like."

"What? What are you- _hrmrmph!_ ' Before he could utter another word, Levana tugged the leather from the collar up over his mouth. It squeezed tight up against his lower face, practically sealing his lips together beneath its force. " _Mmmmm!_ " Link mumbled as the woman fasted buckles behind his head.

"There we are," she chirped with a smile as she finished. "Chained, collared, and quiet. As a slave should be."

Link was livid. " _Mmmmmph! Mmmm! Mmf!_ _"_

"Behave yourself, Link." She held him by the shoulders till he settled down. "Now, you're free to go where you please in town, but stay away from the eastern and western gates. We have lookouts there, and they've been instructed to report any disobedience to me should it arise. Some girls and myself will be expecting you at the center of town at high noon. We're taking you out to do some labor and get those muscles nice and big again so you're seed will grow strong." She stood and looked him over, ignoring his glare and flaring nostrils. "Oh, and don't try to mumble your way out of those restraints. My sisters have all been informed to keep you as you are, and they will be reporting all your actions directly to me. So don't make me punish you, Link. Tonight… you and I will try to bring our savior into the world." She patted the thin loincloth that had been tied around his waist overnight. "I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I."

And with that, she kissed his brow, stood, and left.

Link watched her go in stunned disbelief. His eyes fell to his restraints. The chains and irons were the only things he had 'clothing' him then other than the loincloth and his gag. Beneath the leather muzzle, he grit his teeth and roared as he kicked at the bedside table. It went skidding off and crashed against the far wall. Two of the three glasses atop it shattered. Slowly, he rose to his feet and shuffled off towards the balcony, the chains between his ankle dragging across the floor as he went.

He stepped outside and was met with a dizzying view of the desert. The tower was high, and Levana had brought him to its uppermost level. All around him, over a hundred feet below, the shifting brown carpet of the desert sands glittered beneath the morning sun. Link looked to the vast horizon, but only heat waves lifting and distorting the world beyond met him. His gaze fell back to his chains and he rattled them between his manacled wrists. For the first time since his whole, mad adventure began, he felt truly helpless, truly alone, truly a _slave_.

And below, beyond the stone barrier of the balcony, he could faintly see the Gerudo women in the village looking up towards him, watching… and waiting.


	14. Chapter 14

The castle walls at night were only as comforting as they were imposing. They were tall, looming, slabs of stone, painted a shimmering silver beneath the moonlight, and they crowded the paths and walkways of Hyrule Castle like some ancient stone giants, keeping their eternal vigil. Zelda always felt small and overwhelmed beside them, and so she moved down the path with hurried strides; her slippered feet casting little hushes across the stone underfoot as she did. A cool wind swept down off the mountains to the East, lifting a few stray leaves into a dance, and prompting Hyrule's Princess to pull her night gown tighter around her slim frame to keep warm. Somewhere beyond the walls, a wolf howled. The shrill song send a shiver up her spine.

"Princess," her guard began in a breathless plea beside her, doing his best to match her pace, "are you sure this cannot wait till the morrow? It is dangerous for you to be out here under the veil of night. There are shadows… and shadows bring out the worst of people."

Zelda faced him with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "There is nothing to fear tonight, kind Sir, for I have you." She laid her hand on his forearm and squeezed.

The big armored man sighed and bowed his head. "As you say, my Princess. I only wish you wouldn't walk so fast."

Her eyes returned to the path before them, twisting down the dark, shadowed channels of the castle's inner wall. She pulled a breath and steeled herself with determination. "I apologize for my pace, Sir, but tonight's work demands urgency."

"This intruder…"

"I need hear no more of the intruder," Zelda interjected. "I'm sure I'll have their story from their own tongue soon enough."

"As you say, Princess."

They walked to the end of the path, and a big stone tower rising from the earth greeted them at the castle's corner. Flanking the door at its base, two more armed and armored guards stood at attention as Zelda stepped between them. She smiled and bowed cordially before gesturing to the door. The men hurried to open it for her, then solidified back into their statuesque watch at the flanks. Zelda thanked them, allowed her personal guard to step inside, then quickly followed behind him. The door at their backs was closed, and at once the cold winds of the outside world were snuffed out, and Zelda was able to loosen her grip on her gown a bit then, thankful to be back inside.

"We've got the intruder locked away in the deepest dungeon, Princess," her guard informed her. "We've disarmed them entirely, but I would still stress caution. This one… this one is deceptive and snaky. Stay away from the bars of their cell. Do not-"

"I assure you I can handle one caged prisoner, Sir," Zelda told him. "You have my thanks for accompanying me here. You may wait at the door till I return."

"Wait here!?" Her guard echoed incredulously. "Princess, please, I must argue against such a thing. Surely, I shall accompany you to-"

"You shall do as I instructed, Sir," Zelda interjected, "but you most certainly have my thanks for your concern. It is very sweet of you." She stood on the tips of her toes and leaned forth to kiss his cheek. The man gaped at her, but her kiss had seemed to stolen his will to verbally protest. Zelda did not waste the opportunity to make her retreat. "I shall return soon enough." And with that, slipped into the narrow, curved, staircase that wound down into the tower's dungeon.

The staircase turned and turned, tunneling deeper into the earth with every step of her slippered feet, lit only occasionally by an ensconced torch overhead. When the serpentine path finally ended, Zelda knew she'd come deep underground, and the only thing awaiting her was a thin hall with a dirt floor; a sectioned off quadrant at the rear behind a row of ten iron bars. A pair of torches flanked the cell, spilling red/orange light inside and casting the shadows of the prison's bars in flickering, slanted, lines against the back wall. Between them, their captured intruder sat.

Zelda neared and stood at arm's length from the cell, narrowing her eyes onto the prisoner. There was something… _avian_ about the woman behind the bars. Even seated, she appeared tall and lanky, with sharp features and a long slender neck. Her dark hair matched her dark skin, and sat behind her head in a tight ponytail. _It_ _'_ _s her nose though,_ Zelda realized as she stared at the woman's lowered face. It was a long, jeweled nose that hooked at the end, almost like a bird's beak. _Or a vulture_ _'_ _s._

As if reading into her thoughts, the woman's head lifted ever so slightly, her dark eyes raising to meet Zelda's own. The twin flames at her sides reflected against her pupils; the rest of her features awash in shadow. "Princess," the prisoner greeted with a grin, her voice laced with the subtle dessert accent of the Gerudo. "A pleasure to finally meet you."

Zelda held her tongue a moment as she continued studying the woman. Her guard's words of warning resurfaced in her mind, _This one is deceptive and snaky._ Looking upon her then, Zelda could not disagree. She looked like a coiled snake there at the floor of the cell, posed and ready to strike from the shadows at a moment's notice. The Princess crossed her arms and drummed her fingers against her elbows, keeping her distance from the bars as she spoke. "You requested to speak with me, I understand?"

"I did."

"You were caught sneaking into the inner gardens of the castle."

"I was."

"No one has ever made it so far. I must ask, how did you accomplish such a thing?"

"Skill, mostly." The woman's thin lips wormed their way into a smile. "You are very pretty, Princess. Your hair looks as if it's been kissed by sunlight. Your skin, as smooth and supple as fresh poured milk. Yes. You are quite beautiful. I could see how any person that looked upon you would just want to… drink you up." She snickered quietly to herself.

"Did you request my presence to speak with me, or to try and seduce me?" Zelda questioned with a raise of her brow. "If it's the latter, I assure you your attempts will find no success."

"No?" The Gerudo woman stared. "Don't you get lonely in this big, empty, castle, though, Princess? Doesn't your heart sing the same song as the rest of us? A song that just _begs_ for another voice to join in and sing with it? Are you so cold, Princess Zelda of Hyrule?"

_A serpent_ _'_ _s_ tongue _, too,_ Zelda thought with a frown. "My patience runs thin. If you have something to say, say it now, or I'm afraid I must take my leave of you."

The woman looked down at her own hands and rubbed her fingers against one another. Just when Zelda thought she was going to take a vow of silence and was readying to make her departure, the prisoner spoke. "I did come quite far into your precious castle, didn't I, Princess? A lone Gerudo… so close to breaking into the fables Princess of Hyrule's chambers. Does that notion frighten you?"

"No. It does not."

The Gerudo laughed. "You are quite full of yourself, aren't you? That haughty way you lift your chin and look down your nose at me… the confidence in your voice… the way you take your every step as if the ground should be thankful just to have your royal feet fall upon it. You're certainly a Princess. There's no denying that. You have all the false bravado of one. I wonder, though, _Princess,_ how brave you might've been if I'd made my way into your bed chambers? Without your big guards and your big walls to protect you… would you still be able to lift your pretty chin high enough to look down on me then?"

Zelda had heard enough. "You've waste my time, and I will take my leave of you now. _You_ will remain here, locked up, until I find suitable work for you in the castle grounds. You can atone your crime of breaking in through labor, then I'll release you and you can crawl back to the dessert where you came from for all I care. Goodbye." She turned to leave.

The Gerudo's words halted her in place. "There's war coming to your castle, Princess."

Zelda turned her head so she could cast a shrewd eye on the prisoner. She knew better than to reveal the worry the word 'war' had put in her chest, and replied evenly and calm. "Oh? War with whom, I must ask?"

"My people."

That was enough to turn Zelda back around. The _last_ Gerudo to invade the land of Hyrule… _No,_ she thought, casting the thought aside. _Best not to think of that vile man and his treacheries._ "The Gerudo?" She questioned with a raise of her brow. "And what, may I ask, has prompted a war with them? We've stayed out of your business, you've stayed out of ours."

"We tire of the desert," she answered with a shrug. "And we tire of your Hylian snobbery. We want your castle, Princess, and all the lands it rules over." The woman snickered in the shadows. "I'm but a messenger. The calm before the storm, if you will. And look what I managed all by my lonesome… nearly had _you_ at my mercy with a few simple climbs and leaps."

Zelda swallowed a lump that'd formed up in her throat. "You… you're lying. The Gerudo would not wage open war on the castle. You'd never stand a chance."

"Open war? Likely not. But the Gerudo have never been one to show our hand. We will slip into your castle like the sand snakes you think we are, infiltrate, spread, and then strike from within. What makes you think there aren't dozens more of my sisters all throughout your precious castle grounds right now as we speak? Closing in around you like a noose tightening on a dead man's neck?"

The woman's voice had grown quieter as she spoke, and Zelda took a step nearer to hear her better. When she finished, the Princess narrowed her eyes on the woman's and shook her head. "If you're trying to frighten me, I'm afraid you're failing. My guards-"

"Are well trained, I'm sure, but poorly experienced. That, I suppose, is the burden of having such dominant rule over the land. When's the last time war has…" Quieter and quieter she spoke until Zelda interrupted.

"If you're going to threaten me, at least have the decency to make yourself heard! I can't-"

The woman uncoiled herself, long, lanky, limbs unfolding and working together in perfect unison to spring herself forth. Her hands spread like the talons of a vulture her beaked nose reminded the Princess of and jutted through the bars of the cell. Zelda gasped and stepped backwards, but the woman's arms were long and supple, and before she could flee the woman's reach, those talon-like fingers were digging into the soft flesh of her upper arm and yanking her back. Zelda yelped and twisted and pulled, but the Gerudo woman's other hand had joined the fray by then, clamping down around her wrists and twisting at it till Zelda submitted it. When it was all said and done, the prisoner had managed to get her spun around and pulled right up against the bars of the cell. One of her arms was twisted painfully around her back, and the Gerudo had a tight hold on her chin, pressing her head back and turning it.

" _Let me go!_ " Zelda demanded, writhing against the woman's grasp.

The Gerudo twisted her wrist again instead until she went quiet. "Call to your guard, Princess," the woman spoke right beside her ear, close enough that she could smell the warm, spicy, trickle of her breath. "Call your guard down here now, before I break your wrist."

"No…" Zelda whispered, wincing against the pain. "I will not…"

"You will, or after I break your wrist, I'll snap your neck. Now call your guard down."

She hesitated, and the Gerudo did not waste time twisting her wrist harder, wrenching her up towards her shoulder blades. When the woman commanded her again, Zelda knew she had no choice but to obey. " _Guard! Come down! Quickly! Come down to the dungeon!_ " She bellowed loud enough to carry her voice up the curved stairwell.

It wasn't long before she heard the heavy plating of her guard clanking against itself, and a moment later, he appeared in the doorway, breathless and red-faced. _The woman is right,_ Zelda thought upon seeing him. _My soldiers are well-trained but long out of practice_ _…_

"Princess!" The guard wailed, but when he took a step forward, the Gerudo woman halted him with a threat.

"Don't move or I'll snap her lovely little neck. Now listen to me you oaf, are those my things there by your feet? In the brown sack?"

Zelda's guard glanced to the bag, back to the woman, and nodded. His complexion had gone pale and sickly as he glanced helplessly towards Zelda and swallowed.

"Good. Then toss me the key to this wretched cage you've locked me up in."

" _No!_ " Zelda commanded, but after that, she'd command no more as the woman's hand slid up from her chin and clamped hard over her mouth instead. " _Mmmph!_ "

"Do as I say or she dies."

"You must not harm her!" The guard pleaded. "You give me your word on that! She is the Princess of Hyrule, she must-"

"Toss the key here or you're going to watch her royal wrist snap."

" _No!_ Please! Here, you vile thing, _here!_ " He fetched the key from the ring looped around his waistband and tossed it forth. The woman released her clamp over Zelda's mouth only long enough to catch it and transfer it to her other hand before silencing her again. "Now let her go!"

Behind her, Zelda heard the _click_ of the cell door being unlocked, and a moment later, the bars were swinging forth, forcing her to take awkward half-steps as the iron pressed into her back and shoulders. The Gerudo slipped out, and snatched her more firmly, pressing their bodies together as she took a handful of Zelda's hair and wrenched it back.

"Now get in there," the woman instructed of the guard. "And close the door behind you. _Now_ before I hurt your princess in a way she won't heal from. _Go!_ "

Her poor guard, practically in a panic, did as the woman said. When he'd closed himself in the cell, the Gerudo tossed him the key, made him lock himself in, then made him toss it back to her. When he was securely locked up, Zelda was shoved to the floor.

She felt in the dirt on her hands and knees, but before she could rise again, the Gerudo's foot landed between her shoulder blades and thrust her down till she lay flat on her belly.

"Stay where you are, Princess Zelda," the woman commanded. "It's where you belong, after all. Beneath our feet, in the dirt."

Zelda grit her teeth and turned her head to face the woman. "What do you mean to do? You can't possible believe you'll escape this castle? You-"

"Shut your mouth," the woman demanded, leaning down to snatch up the brown sack nestled into the corner of the hall. She dragged it over and fished inside a moment before producing a pair of rags. A moment later, she took another fistful of Zelda's hair and wrenched it back till the Princess yelped. When she did, the Gerudo stuffed one of the rags into her mouth, then used the other to tied around it. "It's long past time someone gagged you, Princess. Your royal mouth has been allowed to run free for far too long. Now you'll behave."

" _Hrrmmmph!_ " Zelda could only grumble into the gag as it was fastened tightly at the back of her head. " _Mrmmnmph!_ " The woman ignored her muffled protests, and instead fished a length of rope from her bag to wrench Zelda's hands behind her back and begin tying them there in place. When her hands were tightly secured, the Gerudo lassoed her torso a few times before moving to her legs and binding her above and below the knees, then finishing with a tight coil around her ankles.

"There we are," the woman cooed, patting her hand down atop Zelda's rear end. "Trussed up good and tight and ready for transport."

" _Transport!?_ ' Her guard, helplessly locked behind bars, echoed. "Surely, you don't mean to try and smuggle the Princess beyond the castle walls! That's madness!"

"Listen to me," the woman began, "when someone inevitably finds you down here, you big dumb oaf, you're going to explain what happened _exactly_ , then you're going to inform them that the Gerudo have declared _war_ on all of Hyrule. Specifically, this castle. We want it. And if we don't get it…" The woman's hand patted softly at Zelda's behind again. Zelda could only grunt and mumble and glare, twisting helplessly at her useless hands bound together. "The Princess here will be punished. _Severely_."

"No…" Her guard muttered, his eyes falling downwards dejectedly.

"Afraid so. Remember: the Gerudo declare war. _All_ of us. Tell them, and your precious princess might live to see herself returned here as our slave one day." With that, the woman simply bent down, scooped Zelda up in her arms, and rose again with the Princess slung atop her shoulder as if she were nothing more than a sack of grain.

_This can not be happening,_ Zelda thought, writhing and grunting against her gag, but her meek protests did nothing to stop the woman from carrying her out of the dungeon and into the stairwell. When they'd made it back to the main floor, a surge of hope coursed through the Princess when she eyed the wooden door and imagined her guards on its opposite side. But the Gerudo woman did not go through the door. She hesitated there, catching her breath, but when it was _caught_ , simply headed into the next stairwell and began ascending the tower further. _Where is she taking me?_ Zelda wondered, but did not need wonder long, for the answer became clear soon enough.

At the most upper floor of the tower, their ascent finally ended. The Gerudo woman set Zelda on the floor and caught her breath again a moment before rummaging back into her bag. From within, she produced a very long coil of hempen rope, far thicker and more heavily knotted than the one she'd used to bind Zelda hand and foot. When the entire length of it was uncoiled, the swarthy woman began wrapping one end around the legs of the chamber's bed, and then the other end around her slim waist. When both were tied and knotted, she fixed a grin upon Zelda and took her back in her arms. "Hope you're not afraid of heights, Princess."

Zelda's eyes widened and her teeth sunk into the rag keeping her silent. " _Hrmnmmmm!_ "

Without further hesitation, the Gerudo climbed to the windowsill, shoved the wood and glass pane back on its hinges, and carefully began moving to the outer sill. At once, the cold wind sweeping down off the mountains came barreling forth, throwing Zelda's hair and gown about in a wild dance. The Gerudo only went on climbing though, as if impervious to the wind's shrill wail. Zelda had to close her eyes as the two breached the outer sill, and then they were lowering, slowly, down onto vertical face of the tower itself, only the Gerudo woman's tenuous grip on the rope keeping them from plummeting entirely. Her head spun, a cold sweat pooled in her palms, and her heart hammered against her chest, but Zelda made herself keep still, refusing to let her fear potentially make the woman lose her grip.

At some point, they reached solid ground, and Zelda pried her eyes apart to take in the surroundings. Hyrule field was dark, the massive sprawl of dark blue sky watching over it, littered with the myriad white pinholes that were the stars. The winds were less severe there, but the chill was just as cold against her skin. Zelda was only dressed in her night clothes and a gown, and with every gust of wind, they shook loosely around her frame. She'd even lost her slippers at some point during the scuffle, and so when the woman set her down, the slightly damp grass of the field met the soles of her bare feet and sent a shiver up her spine.

The Gerudo tucked her slender fingers between her thin lips and blew. The whistle was sharp but not overtly loud, and a moment later, from around the nearest bend of a hill, a horse began trotting their way.

_She had it all planned,_ Zelda realized, an uneasy feeling stirring profoundly in the pit of her stomach. _Getting caught, talking with me, the escape out of the top of the tower, the ride away on horseback_ _…_ _all of it. She must_ _'_ _ve planned_ all _of it._ The idea made her head swim. Her entire kidnapping was seen long in advance, and now she was helpless but to see it to its conclusion.

When the horse galloped beside them. The tall woman, slung her over her shoulder again, as easily as ever, and then tossed her on the back of the saddle atop her belly. Zelda was unsure of what was happening to her until the Gerudo yanked her legs up into the air and began binding her feet to her hands. _She_ _'_ _s hogtying me like some animal!_ She realized as her binds were pulled more and more tight.

"It's not going to be a comfortable ride for you, I'm afraid, Princess," the woman explained. She leaned down so their eyes met and grinned a malicious grin. "But I don't care." She laughed and made to climb to the saddle before halting and returning. "Oh, and we never had proper introduction either. My name is Jolene, Princess Zelda of Hyrule. I am the former, and soon to be _future_ , leader of the Gerudo tribe. _You_ , Princess, have just earned me my ticket back into my sister's family. For that, I thank you from the very bottom of my heart." She leaned in and kissed the tip of Zelda's nose. Zelda recoiled and grunted, but the woman, Jolene, only stared into her eyes. "Hmmm… that fair Hylian skin of yours… sweet… like his."

_His?_ Zelda thought, but before she could think further, Jolene threw her head back, cackled into the night like some wild beast, then slung one long leg up over the saddle, spurred her heels into the horse's sides, and raced them off towards the West. _Towards the desert,_ Zelda thought, that uncomfortable tension in her belly pulling taught once more. _She_ _'_ _s kidnapped me, and now I_ _'_ _m being stolen away to the desert_ _…_ _to the Gerudo._

Jolene spurred the horse on, picking up speed as they crested a grassy hill and began racing down the other side in the night, only the moon and the stars to watch over them as that ominous brown horizon of the desert grew closer and closer with every stride.


	15. Chapter 15

He swung the axe over the top of his head. At its apex, the sunlight caught against the steel of the bladed edge, shimmering and turning the tool into a brief beacon of light. Then he drove it down hard, splitting the waiting log below in halves. The axe met the stump at the log's base and the morning air filled with the crisp sound of steel biting deeply into wood. Link bent to collect the freshly split halves from the stump's flanks, joined them, piled them with the two dozen others he'd made that morning, and swiped sweat from his brow. From beyond the horse pen where he'd been working, his 'admirers' sent forth a chorus of cheers and whistles and claps. Link sighed and glanced to them.

Kotake led the crowd, standing atop the fence's bottom rail to give her short height the needed boost to tower over the other girls gathered around her and holler at him. She'd shown up two days earlier along with Aveil and the rest of the Gerudo girls from the other camp, and had wasted no time claiming Link as 'hers'. She hounded after his every step, like a living, breathing, shadow, and slowly, more and more of Levana'sgirls had taken to joining her. Now, Link had his own little pack of admirers, from sunrise to sunset. It was… strange, but, he supposed, better than being locked away in isolation.

Ignoring the girls, he fetched another log from the pile and set it up vertically atop the stump. He was shirtless, as the Gerudo so vehemently insisted he remain, and sweating, and he knew the little hush of silence that befell his admirers while he worked was filled with a dozen hungry stares from a dozen hungry women. _Let them stare,_ he thought as he readied the axe to split the log. _Being stared at is better than being chained._

Slowly, he'd rid himself, for the most part, of his bondage. The first day, he'd asked Levana if his hands could be freed so that he might work around the village. The blonde Gerudo had considered it only briefly before deciding it was a "most wise and excellent plan, Link of Hyrule.". She'd explained how in order for him to 'strengthen his seed', he'd need be at his best physically, and so had given him an order of tasks he could work on from sunrise to sunset to keep himself busy.

The second day, he'd gotten the girls to remove the fetters from his ankles, though they left one in place and promptly locked it to a weighted iron ball, but the thing wasn't so bad to haul around all day in truth, and he could feel the muscles of his back and arms working back into form as he carried it.

The third day, he'd asked about the collar, but Levana was adamant in her refusal. "You are _owned_ , Link of Hyrule," she'd explained. "Your collar tells anyone who looks upon you that, as well as the Goddesses looking down from the skies above. They must know. Your seed belongs to us, and to our future." And so the collar had stayed where it was: locked firmly around his neck. But Link had most of his mobility for the better part of his days in captivity, and that was good enough, for the time being.

By night, of course, things were different. Four nights by then he'd spent as prisoner of Levana and her girls, and all four nights he'd slept bound and chained against her bed in the uppermost chamber of the village's central tower. At dusk of each day, Levana would come find him wherever he might be amongst the walls and the women, leash him by his collar, and lead him back up to her bedroom to be restrained. Then she would disappear briefly, return when the night had fallen fully and the moon rose over the dunes outside, and quietly make her way to her little circle of serenity to pray.

Four nights she'd done that… and four nights Link had gone untouched. Whatever Levana was asking of her Goddesses, she, apparently, wasn't getting the answer she was looking for. She only returned to the bed with a slightly disappointed look on her face to sleep beside him, never saying a word, never laying a single finger upon his body. By morning, she'd be gone, and Link would be freed from his chains, save the one around his ankle.

" _Slice up that mean old log, Mr. Link!_ " Kotake's shouting broke his train of thought from beyond the stable gate. In the mornings, her hair was a vibrant orange beneath the sun's kiss, and it bobbled against her shoulders in wavy curls as she hopped up and down. " _Show me them big strong muscles in action!_ My _muscles, girls! Don't you forget it!_ "

Link glanced over just in time to see Kotake wink and blow him a kiss. He forced a nod of acknowledgement her way, but quickly turned from the young woman, focused on the log, and drove the axe clean down its center. Again, his admirers cheered him on, Kotake loudest of all, but Link found no joy in the sound. He simply went on cutting until there was nothing left to cut, and when all the log halves were stacked neatly beside the stump, his morning's task complete, Link picked up his shackled ball and simply traipsed off towards the stables, ignoring the disappointed jeers from the girls at his backside.

He found Epona, as she'd been the last two days, at the rear of the stables, beneath the long, slanted awning that shadowed the pen and kept it cool and free from the harsh desert sun. She moved to the front of her gate before he'd entered beneath the awning and fixed her big dark eyes on him.

_She knows when I'm coming even before she sees me,_ he thought with a smile and hurried his steps to move before the big horse and stroke at her mane. Epona clopped her hooves appreciatively and bowed her head, and Link closed his eyes and touched his brow to her own. When he pulled away he retrieved the soft bristle brush and set to brushing her. Epona allowed it, but Link could sense her restlessness as he worked. _She doesn't want me to brush her, she wants me to ride her,_ he mused as he ran the brush against her side. _She wants the wind in her mane, an open field before her._ An open field, even Link had to admit, would be a wonderful change of scenery from the brown desert and its endless brown dunes. _And, perhaps, the women who've kidnapped me that inhabit it…_

In truth, the Gerudo had been treating him fine; better, in fact, with every passing day, but… Link could not simply settle into his captivity. Like Epona, some creatures, he supposed, were just never meant to be saddled and penned. He found his gaze drawing inexorably throughout the day towards the horizon, his mind lingering on what might lie beyond it, and how to get there. He thought of the forest where he grew up, and the great blue lake where he'd gone fishing, and the castle where he'd first seen the most beautiful-

"Link…"

He looked to the stable entrance. Making her way from the sun-soaked pen outside to the shadowed interior of the stable grounds, Aveil came; dressed today in long flowing plume silks that twisted sinuously about her bronze skin as she walked. When she neared, she reached for the hook of her purple mask and peeled it aside, letting Link see the cordial smile she wore across her full lips as she stepped before the stable where he and Epona were. "Hello, Link."

He nodded welcome but said nothing as he went back to running the bristle brush against Epona's hindquarters and legs.

He felt her eyes bearing silently down upon them for a moment before the woman asked, "Can I help?"

He glanced back at her, sighed, but nodded his acquiescence all the same.

Aveil cracked the pen gate to slip inside. She fixed her smile on Epona and stepped near to run her hands in soft circles around the horse's neck. Epona was stiff only a second before taking a slight step forward and bowing her head a bit, and Link knew that was her way of accepting someone else's touch. _She likes Aveil,_ he thought, glancing up at the Gerudo. He wasn't surprised, really. Beyond the first night of his captivity, when Jolene had sent Aveil to… _tease_ him, she'd been the kindest of the girls by far. Her eyes were almond colored, soft, easy to look upon, and when she spoke, her accent had none of the harshness most of the others had. Thinking back on it, it was no wonder Jolene had first sent her to seduce him and not someone else.

"She really is beautiful, Link," Aveil said as she ran her fingers through Epona's mane. "This white hair of hers… and her eyes… tell me, where do you first come upon her?"

He wasn't really looking to talk, and so simply shrugged his shoulders, said, "I don't know," and went back to brushing.

"You don't _know_ where you got your own horse from?"

He struggled to find a way to avoid the conversation. "I… well…"

"Link," her voice in that soothing tone _made_ your eyes look upon her. Link did, and Aveil searched his face with a look of concern. "You're not happy here, are you?"

For a brief moment, he considered lying, but Aveil's eyes held his and coaxed the truth out of him. "No. I'm not. Of course I'm not. Levana may have taken my chains off, for the most part, but she still has no intention of freeing me."

"Until you give her a child, I suppose, no… she doesn't," Aveil admitted. She stepped around Epona's side and kneeled next to him. "I understand your burden of captivity. Is there anything _I_ can do to make you… happier?"

"No. I don't think so."

Aveil sighed, but, thankfully, did not probe him further on the matter. Instead, she watched him brush Epona for a bit before fetching a washcloth, soaking it, wringing it out in a bucket, and then gently running it down the horse's side. Epona looked back, clopped her hooves, then settled in to let the two clean and brush her. They worked like that for a while in silence until Aveil broke it. "You're not happy here… and somedays, I'm not sure I am either, in truth, Link."

He remained silent.

"Especially not back with Levana. It's strange after all this time coming back here and having her lead us again… not that there's anything particularly _wrong_ with Levana. She's… a good leader. Smart, confident, passionate… but when Jolene led us girls away from her, it felt… _exciting,_ you know? Like, well, an adventure of sorts." She left a gap of silence, but when Link did not fill it, went on talking. "You know, I may have told you this already, Link, but… if you were to ever escape this place, and you, perhaps, stole me from my sisters… back in your Hryule, our roles would be reversed. It would be _me_ in the collar and chains. Us Gerudo are too wild, they say, to live amongst you Hylians, but… I wouldn't have a choice if you took me as your prisoner, would I?"

"Aveil…" He began, not wanting to discuss the subject any further.

"You could keep me stashed away by day, and by night you could come to me and use me as you please. Use my hands or my mouth… or my body." Her hand moved from Epona to Link's own and stroked his knuckles.

Link pulled away. "Aveil, would you stop? Please."

Her big almond eyes flicked between his. She scooted a bit closer on her knees beside him and swallowed. "I've put thought into it. Truly, I have. I could _help_ you, Link. Help you escape. If I did, though… I wonder, would you steal me?"

"I… I don't…" He wasn't entirely sure what she wanted to hear.

"Because, you see, even if I _wanted_ to leave my sisters with you… a part of me never could. Call it… loyalty, I suppose. Or perhaps foolishness. At times, the two feel like one in the same anyway. But… I could not go willfully, even if my heart, my _soul_ , desired it. I'd _have_ to be stolen. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

He thought he did, but took an extra moment to ponder it before speaking. "You're saying even if you helped me escape this place, _you'd_ have to stay back with your sisters and deal with the consequences of your actions… unless I took you forcefully from them. Is that it?"

There was a certain look of excited desperation on the woman's face as she bit at her lip and nodded. "Yes, Link. That's it. You'd _have_ to kidnap me. And you'd have to keep me, too."

" _Keep_ you?"

"As your prisoner, yes. If I was free… my heart would leave me no choice but to return here to accept my punishment."

Link sighed. "Aveil, what you're asking me to do…"

"I'm not asking you anything, Link. I'm only explaining the situation. Nothing more, nothing less. Anything else would be treason against my sisters. And I would never do such a thing."

Link considered her words. "Then… you don't believe Levana, do you? About my seed and the child I'm 'fated' to give the Gerudo?"

Aveil pressed her lips together, as if perhaps trying to keep the words sealed inside her mouth before they could be said. She lost the fight with herself and told him, "No. Levana… even before Jolene led us from her so many moons ago, had been entrenching herself deeper and deeper into her faith. Call it desperation, perhaps. Desperation that her ideas of the Gerudo expanding into the land of Hyrule had failed her time and time again. She prayed more, spoke with us less, and by the time we fled her… I feared deeply for the health of her mind." Her big almond eyes turned on Link and narrowed. "And now that we've returned to her, I fear for _you_ , Link. I fear if you do not, or perhaps _can_ not, provide her with what she seeks… harm may befall you."

_Harm may befall you,_ the words echoed in Link's mind, and as they did, he could only picture Levana as he'd seen her last, knelt in the circle of serenity within her chambers, completely nude and deep in prayer, 'speaking' to the Goddesses. He could see her eyes, too, pale flecks of ice that pierced right through you if she stared long enough. Link grimaced and turned his focus back to Aveil. "If you _were_ to ever help me escape, Aveil… how would you do it? By day, there are sentries posted at either entrance of the village. By night, Levana keeps me locked away in her bed chamber, bound and chained. There'd be no time to-"

"There is a brief window," Aveil interjected. "I know after Levana takes you up to chain you in her bedroom, she leaves to bath herself. She's always bathing herself as of late. She heats the water till it scolding and then she scrubs and scrubs and scrubs. What filth she's trying to rid herself of, I'm not sure, but I know it leaves time… time, perhaps, for someone to sneak into her room, free you, and flee."

"And if this 'helper' of mine were caught…?"

Aveil lowered her eyes and swallowed. "Well, I suppose the consequences would be… severe. Your helper… she'd likely be chained and lashed until she atoned for her sins against the Gerudo. She'd be left to keep her life, certainly, Levana is not Jolene, but… she would be forever branded _traitor_ , and looked upon with the same mistrust and revulsion as one by her sisters." Aveil sighed and rubbed the silk of her blouse between her fingers. "But the risk might be worth it to her… if she could be taken away by you."

Epona was as clean and brushed as she was going to be, and Link was tired of talking in circles with Aveil. He forced a smile to his face as he rose. "You've given me… much to think about, Aveil. Thanks for the company."

"Of course, Link." She rose herself to meet his eyeline, then quickly leaned in and planted a kiss on his lips before he could say otherwise. With a grin and a wink, she left him standing there; the taste of her mouth lingering fresh on his own.

For a while, he only stood thinking on her words, running his hand back and forth through Epona's mane.

"You were as wild as that one once," he told the horse," but I suppose you were tamed." The words surfaced in his mind that his tongue would not form: _And could Aveil's wild nature be tamed just the same?_

By the time he departed the stables, Kotake and her girls had, thankfully, moved along, and the only thing outside to greet Link was a trio of lumbering purple clouds moving in from the East to blot the sun. _Storm clouds,_ he thought, putting some haste in his step as he moved back for the inner part of the village to get some food. The first trickling of raindrops came upon his bare shoulders as he reached the pen gate. Link glanced skyward and figured by the time his meal was over, their little village would be in the firm grip of a full on desert storm.

The flat stretch of barracks at the base of a long building towards the Northern gates served as the village's dining hall. When Link arrived the place was nearly empty. That was good. That's how he liked to eat. He made a point of it to get there a little before the rest of the girls filled the place out. It helped him avoid those lingering stares they seemed so fond of laying upon him, or Kotake's endless chattering and flirting. He moved down the length of the room to the kitchens, where a few women dressed in aprons were already busy cooking up the evening's dinner. It smelled wonderful.

Eryll, the Gerudo head cook, caught him spying from the doorway and turned a grin on him. "Hylian," she greeted in her typical fashion. "Come to stir the stew?"

"Looking for a meal, actually."

She snickered. "Yes, of course. We must keep our savior in good strength. Though, I wish for once you'd eat with the rest of us. I imagine nothing goes quite as well with a good dinner than a handsome man for the girls to lay there eyes on as they sink their teeth into their meat."

Link forced an uneasy smile. It was an affectation he was becoming very good at.

"Here. I knew you'd come. Already have a plate." She retrieved a wooden slab with a steaming haunch of vulture meat laying atop it. Link couldn't help but lick his lips at the sight. He'd grown quite accustomed to vulture during his stay with his captors. "There's two more courses afterwards, but… I"m sure you'll unfortunately be long gone by then, yes, Hylian?"

Instead of answering, he took the plate and bowed graciously. "Thank you, Eryll. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Of course you will."

He ate quickly and quietly, isolated in the far corner of the room where the drapery and pillars could at least partially keep him hidden. His meal was delicious, and mostly uneventful, save a few wandering Gerudo who spied him eating and stopped by to gawk and flirt. It wasn't until he'd finished and was just rising to bring his plate back when a shadow fell across the table and a figure came looming over him.

Link raised his eyes to find Levana.

"A storm comes," she spoke in her deliberate monotone; ice blue eyes holding on his, locking him in place but with a stare.

"So I've noticed."

She stared a moment. "What do they think of storms in your land of Hyrule, Link?"

He considered it. "A good one can make the areas around the riverlands and Laky Hylia dangerous. Winds can be a nightmare for peddlers at the bizarres too. I don't suppose…"

Her smile, sudden and just a tad patronizing, made him trail off. "Link, I'm not talking about the _practicality_ of a storm. I mean what do your people _believe_ about them?"

"We believe they're dangerous."

Her lips twisted. "A shame. Here, beneath the desert sky, _we_ believe a storm brings dark forebodings. Displeasure, if you will, from the Goddesses."

"Displeasure?"

"When they speak to me, I…" her brow furrowed, her eyes lined with stress, "I sometimes think, perhaps, I mishear them. I _try_. I do, but… I am but a mortal woman. How can they expect absolute divinity from me?"

If Link could find words to voice he would've, but Levana was acting stranger than usual, and so he only stayed silent as she stared off into the distance.

After a long moment, her vacant gaze found its way back to him. "Perhaps I was mistaken to allow you to roam free during the days."

A knot twisted in Link's stomach. He shook his head. "No. Levana, it was very good of you to allow me these freedoms. Kind. I appreciate them, and I haven't-"

"Hush," she demanded of him, her brow furrowing just slightly to let him know she meant it. "Perhaps it is your tongue that upsets the Goddesses. Yes, perhaps that's it. I should've kept you silenced."

Now the knot in his stomach had unwound and every bit of him was feeling just as uncomfortable. "Levana, I-"

"I _demand_ your silence!" She shouted, and the chatter of the room waned to nothing as the rest of the Gerudo slowly turned interested looks their way. Levana's expression was as calm as ever, but their was cold fire in her eyes. Link knew if he spoke then, she'd surely call for her guards to restrain him and lock him up. "You are to come to me early tonight, earlier than usual," she went on in her monotone. "Before sunset, this time. If you don't, I'll have my girls bring you to me in shackles. Do you understand, Link?"

He nodded.

She returned the gesture, turned, and vanished outside.

Link sat a moment. He could feel all the eyes in the barracks held on him. They weren't hungry looks, like back at the stables, either. They were… concerned. For that matter, so was he. He stood, returned his food plate, and hurried outside without so much as a word spoken to anyone.

He found Aveil at her usual grounds, in the stables across the village at the bottom of the hill, where the high stone wall met the rolling dunes head on. Not Epona's pen, but the pens where they kept their strongest riding horses.

Aveil's back was to him when he entered, but she turned towards his noise on approach. For a moment, she was startled, then she smiled, then she started to speak. Link put an abrupt halt to that by covering up her mouth with his hand and scooting her back further into the shadows of the room.

He pressed her gently to the wall and held her eyes as he spoke. "Aveil, listen to me. What we talked about earlier… about how one might go about helping me escape… how quickly could such a plan be put into motion?"

He took his hand away to let her answer. For a moment, she only stared at him, nonplussed. "Link, what's happened?"

"I don't know. Levana's strange mood just took a sharp turn. We spoke in the barracks. Her eyes… they were more empty than usual. And she's threatening to take away the few freedoms I've been afforded here. I'm… I'm concerned what she might do to me soon. If I don't escape, that is." He saw the doubt in Aveil's expression as he spoke. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, I have a bad feeling about this, alright? Will you trust me on that? Will you believe me?"

Aveil swallowed, but as she started to nod, a confidence filled her eyes and Link found himself greatly appreciating the woman. "Tonight, then," she said in a hushed voice. "I can release you tonight."

"Can you? Are you certain?"

"Yes. Yes, I… I'm sure of it." She licked at her lips. "The guards at either gate changes posts an hour after sunset. That is when I'll have to make my move."

Link considered it. "Levana's demanded I go to her chambers earlier than usual tonight. I don't know what's she planning, but I'm not sure you'll have that window of opportunity when she's usually gone and I'm alone."

Aveil's expression was resolute. "If she's there when I come, I will deal with her."

Link took her by the elbows. "You're sure?"

Aveil nodded.

His appreciation for her manifested in a kiss. It was the first time since he'd been among the women that he found the gesture sincere. He pressed his lips to her own and squeezed her, and when they parted, he wondered if they were lips he really might be able to spend the rest of his days kissing.

Aveil glanced to their side and gasped.

Link snapped his head around and found Kotake in the stable doorway. She was leaned casually against the jamb, her arms folded across her chest, her eyes narrowed, her expression solemn. There was a breeze outside, and it was sending her orange-flame hair billowing to her side.

He looked back to Aveil and found the same inquisitive look he imagined he wore himself. _How long has she been there?_ It asked. _How much has she heard?_

They were questions that would not be answered, unfortunately, for when he turned back, Kotake had already pressed herself off the jamb and stepped out of sight. The wind was on her heels, sending bits of sand and pebbles with her. It was hard not to think of the wild young woman as the wind itself, coming and going, directionless for long stretches of time until it was focused and relentless.

"Will she be a problem?" He asked Aveil.

"She's a girl. When have they ever not been?" Her hand grazed his cheek and pulled his eyes back to her. "Tonight, Link. I will come for you."

"Thank you, Aveil. You've… you've done much for me."

"Repay me," she said softly as she pressed herself against him, "and steal me." Her lips were warm against his cheek, then she was backing away, then she was gone.

Link stood in the stables a moment, enjoying the solitude of them. He took a long breath and pressed his fingers to his eyes. If he could make it one more night, just one more, he'd be done with it all: for good. It was strange to him, then, that he still couldn't shake that feeling that everything was about to go wrong.

It worsened when he left the stables and started the long climb back up the slope of the road towards Levana's tower. Movement out on the horizon beyond the wall caught his eye, and for a second—only a fleeting second—he swore he saw Jolene on horseback, riding the dunes with a smaller, hooded, rider saddled in front of her.

He blinked and it was gone. Only the shimmering heat waves awaited his gaze when he looked again.

_I have to escape this desert,_ he thought as he resumed his climb. _For my own sanity, if nothing else…_

Nearby, Levana's tower awaited.


	16. Chapter 16

Aveil pressed herself flat against the stone barrier that trimmed Levana's tower. From her vantage point there she could see the guards the woman had posted standing statuesque at the flanks of the tower's solitary entrance. A glance westward showed the horizon ablaze with the last light of day and the dusty haze of an oncoming storm and Aveil knew her time was running out; worse, so was Link's. She took a breath and forced herself calm. She'd need her wits about her if she were to sneak into Levana's chambers and snatch the woman's most prized possession right out from under her nose. There was a slitted window above the guarded doorway, just narrow enough for a thin woman like herself to ease through and infiltrate the tower. Levana's guards were stationed far enough before it that Aveil knew she could slip inside undetected, she need only get close first. Cautiously she stepped from the shadows to do just that but by the time her foot laid the first stone along the path to saving Link, she was taken from behind.

Someone pressed her up hard against the barrier and drove the sharp edge of a blade against the top of her throat. She opened her mouth to shout and the blade pressed more deeply against her skin, shutting her up lest she bleed herself.

Kotake stared up at her with those wild eyes of hers held wide and grinned. "Going somewhere, big sis?"

In part she was relieved, in part fearful. Aveil squirmed in the younger girl's hold and tried speaking again till Kotake's blade tickled at her neck and changed her mind.

"Quiet. You've done enough talking, I think, Aveil. You even went and talked nice Mr. Link into choosing _you_ instead of me. Well congratulations. You've won." She sneered and pouted in that childish way of hers and Aveil could only roll her eyes. "Don't give me that look, sweet sister. I hate that condescending look of yours. And there's no time for it, either. Something big is happening tonight, and your presence has been requested. Now let's go, and don't you make a sound from that pretty mouth of yours or you'll make me very very mad, sis, okay?"

If Kotake would allow her to speak she might've explained the urgency of her mission, of the fact that 'nice Mr. Link' wouldn't be able to choose _any_ one if she didn't save him in time, but the girl was set in her ways and when she pulled Aveil from the barrier she shoved her ahead and kept her walking with her arm twisted up painfully behind her back. Aveil was kept that way under threat of blade all the way to the big stone wall that guarded the village perimeter, Kotake stealthily keeping them hidden in shadows and alleys until they'd arrived. When they had, she shoved Aveil down to her knees and pointed with the tip of the blade.

"In there, sis. Crawl through," she said with a nod towards a small broken piece of the wall that splintered upwards in a long crack. It was just enough at its base where stone met sand for a person to squeeze through. Aveil had never known it was there and doubted anyone else did for that matter considering it'd never been patched.

"Where are you taking me, Kotake?"

"I didn't tell you to talk, I told you to crawl. Now get going or Mr. Blade here is going to poke your shapely little butt. Go."

With no other choice, Aveil begrudgingly laid herself against the sand and began worming beneath the wall on her belly. She squirmed through the crack and felt the harsh claws of the desert winds raking at her face and eyes immediately. She got a hand through and shielded herself and it was in that position she came to her knees and squinted up at the figure looming over her. For a moment, she thought it was a ghost or, perhaps, a desert mirage. Then the foot hit her in the jaw and knocked her down and told her it was no mirage.

"Jolene!" She hissed and clutched her throbbing jaw where it'd been stricken. "How!?"

Jolene stood over her smirking, the winds throwing her loose-fit silks about her frame in a mad dance. Her lips peeled back to reveal her teeth and it made the woman look absolutely feral. Kotake had wiggled her way into the desert as well by then and she looked almost comically short standing beside the imposing tower that was Jolene.

"Get her up," Jo commanded and Kotake was quick to obey. Together they took hold of Aveil's arms and dragged her up the long slope of the dune cresting against the lost Gerudo village. Aveil glanced back warily to perhaps find a guard that might be able to help her but all was beginning to grow lost in those harshening winds. In the west, the horizon was no longer on fire, now it was a cool purple and the only light left in it was dying or dead.

"You have to let me go," she pleaded, writhing in their hold. "I don't what you're planning on doing with me but I _must_ get to Levana's tower!"

The ignored her, opting instead to drag her to the crest of the dune and then a ways down the other side where a tent had been erected. It stood alone amidst the pale sprawl of the desert, like a rock poking up through a riverbed. She was carried to its base where Jolene threw the flap aside and then thrown down on a carpeted interior within. It was dark inside, musty, but there was enough light still bleeding through the thin tent walls to see the bound girl kneeling at the tent's far side.

Aveil's face twisted up in confusion. "Who…?"

"She is Princess Zelda of Hyrule Kingdom," Jolene answered as she ducked inside the tent and lowered to press a knee into Aveil's back. When Aveil winced and flailed her arms to her sides, Jo caught them and twisted them around behind her to bind. She felt Kotake fall in at her feet and begin work on her ankles the same way.

As she lay being bound, her eyes were drawn inexorably back towards the other captive. She was a soft and pale thing in comparison to the harsh dark shades of the desert, thin and fragile looking in the heavy layers of ropes she was bound in. Her eyes were the purest blue pools Aveil had ever seen, even moreso than Link's, and when those pretty eyes landed upon her there was no doubt in her mind. Jolene hadn't lied: this was, in fact, the Princess of Hyrule. The girl squirmed a bit as they stared at one another and her thin pink lips moved soundlessly over the gag wedged between them.

"What are you doing with her, Jolene? How did you even mange to capture such a person?"

Jolene finished tying her up and dusted her large hands. "Questions that needn't concern you, Aveil. All that matters if I've taken her, and with her comes war."

" _War_?"

"The might of Hyrule comes for their dear, dear princess. They know where we are, they know _who_ we are. Now its only a matter of time before they sweep down upon us with all their fury."

Aveil twisted herself around to stare up incredulously at the woman. "Why are you doing this?"

"You girls need a strong leader to survive this," Jolene explained with a broad grin beneath her hooked nose. "And conveniently, here I am to lead you. Well… the _others_. Not you, Aveil. I knew you'd never fall under my command again after what happened between us. That's why I had sweet little Kotake here grab you. As I grabbed her."

"It's inevitable, sis," Kotake said, nodding her agreement. "We have to take Jolene back. They'll kill us all if we don't."

"Kotake are you _madder_ than I'd thought!? You're _helping_ Jolene after everything she's done? To our people? To _us_!?"

"There's no choice now," Kotake said, though her eyes flittered uncertainly. "Jolene will rise the Gerudo up strong again. You'll see."

"The young one begged for your life, Aveil. I'd thank her if I were you," Jolene said with a snicker. "Now, I'll need information from you."

"Information?"

Jolene grilled her then, asking a succession of rapid-fire questions that she demanded immediate answers to. She wanted to know the layouts of every building and every person. She wanted to know where the guards roamed and how armed they were. Mostly she wanted to know about Levana, though, where the woman slept and how much company she kept and when she was at her most vulnerable and it was then Aveil knew for certain Jolene plotted to murder her and usurp her place of rule that very night.

"If you mean to go to Levana you have to go _now_ , Jolene," Aveil pleaded with her. "Link's life is in danger. The woman is not right, I'm afraid she's going to do something terrible with him."

At the mention of Link, the Princess's eyes lifted from the ground and filled with interest.

Jolene frowned. "I care nothing for your man-whore."

"You promised, Jo…" Kotake whined, looking up at Jolene with the wounded expression of a child.

Jolene rolled her eyes. "That _man_ has done nothing but stir up trouble since we came across him. I would rather he be dealt with, but I have more important matters before me. If you're so desperate to save him, girl, then save him but do not look for my help. Levana is my target, and it is her blood that will be spilled tonight before my crowning."

"Jolene, what are you-" Aveil began until Jo ordered Kotake to gag her and after the cloth was fastened around her mouth all she could do was glare between the two of them in silence.

Jolene draped a heavy cloak around Kotake and then donned one herself and when the tent flaps were spread apart and the two women huddled together and headed out, they looked like two ancient sorcerer's vanishing into dust in the growing desert storm. The flaps fell closed and darkness swallowed the interior again, shielding but not muting entirely the raking of sand beating at the world outside in its relentless tides.

Aveil lay still a moment, trying to wrap her head around all that had been told to her and then found herself looking across the carpet to her fellow prisoner. The young woman watched back with her big blue eyes and pointed pale ears and she looked very afraid. Aveil fell to the ground and wormed her way, bound as she was, across the gap between them. When they were beside one another, she wiggled her way to a kneel and met the eye line of Hyrule's princess. She leaned close and the young woman moved back to escape her. Aveil tried to implore the woman to trust her with her eyes and leaned in again. This time the princess looked hesitant but remained still, and Aveil was able to get her teeth around the gag in her mouth and wrench it loose with a few jerks of her head.

Zelda coughed and licked her lips once her mouth was rid of the gag. She swallowed deeply and bowed her head. "Thank you." Aveil made a noise and gestured to her own gag and the princess complied by leaning forth and using her teeth to free it from Aveil's mouth. The girl smelled as sweet as fresh flowers and was remarkably clean considering she must've been stolen through the desert these past few days and nights.

When Aveil could speak again she said, "Is it true then? You are Princess Zelda?"

"…I am."

"And Jolene took you from your castle? That tale is true as well?"

"She did." The princess's voice was soft but firm, fittingly 'royal' in every sense of the word. "She kidnapped me from my very own dungeon where she was being held. She forced my guard to unlock her cage and then held me prisoner in her arms till she was able to flee the castle grounds. We've been on horseback ever since."

"They know it was a Gerudo who took you then?"

Zelda smiled a bitter smile. "Oh, yes. That woman made sure of it. She gave the message to my head guard to tell them all that the Gerudo have declared war on Hyrule castle…"

"But we haven't," Aveil insisted, the very idea of her people being used like pawns by Jolene made her furious.

"No. I understand that. It's apparent from the way that woman spoke to you. She's clearly mad or… something worse." The princess sighed and when she looked upon the ground and shook her head she looked a woman much older than she clearly was. "It won't stop them. That Jolene was not lying when she said Hyrule's might would be coming. It is. I'm terribly sorry… but if I can't get to them to call them off, they're going to…"

"I know. You don't have to say it."

A silence fell between them. Outside the winds grew heavier still and the tent wall trembled against their force.

"…Link is in danger?" Zelda asked.

"You… you know Link?"

The princess smile again, though this time she wore the gesture with a bit more joy even though sadness still framed it. "Yes. I know Link."

Aveil took her time forming her next question, breathing deeply in anticipation of the answer. "Then… you two are lovers?"

"Lovers? …no, nothing like that. Link… he is special to me, however. We've only met once, but when I looked into his eyes I swear I felt more profoundly happy than I had in a long time. We talked for a bit… I asked him if he'd ever seen a desert rose… ironic, I suppose, that we've both found our way together again in this harsh desert world."

Aveil stared into the thin opening where the tent flaps met and watched the sands swirl beyond. "You know, the whole time I've known Link these past few days and nights, I always felt his heart belonged elsewhere. I desired him, I suppose you should know. Many of us girls did. It is rare we have contact with a man, let alone a man, like… well, _him_. But every time his eyes looked out into the desert I knew he was dreaming of someplace or some _one_ far away. I guess I always knew his love was not meant for me in that way."

Zelda listened intently, her lips pressed tightly together.

Aveil smiled. "Should I survive this, Princess of Hyrule, I'll do what I can to see you meet with him again." Fear stirred in her heart. "Though right now, his fate is not in our hands. It is in his own."

* * *

The wood shutters banged noisily upon the tower sides as the winds outside picked up and drove them near to splinters against the stone. Link lay watching but was unable to do much else as he was bound down to the bed, his wrists and ankles each manacled in a leather cuff that lay chained to the four corners. He shifted his weight uncomfortably. Levana had had him stripped completely naked save his small clothes around his waist and bared as he was, the bits of sand that snuck their way inside sprinkled lightly across his nudeness. The light outside had just about drained from the sky and now the ensconced torches that trimmed the tower walls were all the illumination he had left. It cast flickering shadows upon the bed and his bare flesh, dancing across his menacingly.

_Where are you, Aveil?_ His thoughts endlessly turned to that one question, but when the chamber doors finally opened it was not Aveil that entered, but Levana. She strode into the room in a large and heavy cloak that made her look far thicker and imposing than she was. Beneath its collared hood he could see the pale flecks of ice that were her eyes staring forward but, somehow, not seeing. That only made him squirm uncomfortably again. She paced into the room dragging a tail of robes behind her and went to the windows to latch them shut and put an end to their ceaseless banging. There she stood a moment in the fresh silence with her head down and her hands clasped. Link watched breathing slowly to calm himself. She whispered something and then threw her head back and the robes flung free from her body at the same time.

She raised her arms skywards and stood naked as the day she was born in her little circle of prayer. Her twist of blond hair curled towards the ceiling and her eyes followed it upwards. She spoke softly again and lowered to her knees before pressing her forehead to the stone floor and flattening her palms upon it. She stayed that way for a long while, Link unable to look away as he lay chained. When she finally did rise up again, it was with the slow deliberate pace of a person on a mission. She faced the bed and stalked towards it with her arms draped to her sides.

"Levana…" Link began, shaking his head. "Look, I don't know…"

As she passed a table, her hand casually moved across its top and slid the pommel of a long dagger into her palm. She clutched it tight and the blade hissed as it was pulled across the stone.

Link swallowed. "You don't have to do this. There has to be another way."

"This is the Goddess's way." Her bare feet plodded heavy against the stone floor and then the creaking of the bed filled the chamber as she crawled atop it and swung one naked leg over Link's hips to straddle him. She pressed the dagger between her breasts and let it sit atop the flesh there while she spoke. "I have offended them by thinking I could know their will. I am a heretic in that way. I must atone. And atonement as in need as mine requires great sacrifice. Blood." The dagger slid from between her breasts and the woman turned it over in her hands, watching the blade. Torchlight shone in its reflective surface, casting it in a wicked crimson tint.

Link writhed beneath her weight. He tugged ineffectively at his bound wrists. "Levana, no."

"It is necessary."

He pulled hard on his left arm and felt the slightest bit of hope. The cuff on his wrist there was tight but no so tight he thought he couldn't maybe slip his hand loose if he had enough time. He jerked at it again, hard, but it stayed put.

"Don't fight this, Link. You should be honored. You're going to meet the Goddesses." She spoke in her queer flat monotone, her eyes looking not at him but past him. "It is I who will be left here upon the world to suffer. You… you are going to be free at last. Truly free."

She moved the blade from side to side, cutting the air, dipping in and out of shadow. Outside the winds came harder and this high up in the tower it sounded as if some great and ancient beast had been woken from its slumber and was laying siege upon the stone. Levana paid it no heed. Her focus was on the tip of the dagger and when she stopped its motion it came to rest right atop Link's heart. It dipped into his flesh and blossomed a ring of blood.

"Levana, wait!" He pleaded, flattening to the bed and ripping again at his cuffs.

"No more delays. The Goddesses must be appeased." She closed her free hand around the blade and drove it harder into his skin. "Goodbye, Link of Hyrule. I will see you in the next life." Her face contorted with exertion and she raised the blade high and plunged it right into his heart.

Only his left hand, slick with sweat, slipped the cuff at the last moment and Link managed to grab the woman's wrist with the dagger tip inches from his beating heart. Levana made a hideous screeching sound through clenched teeth and tried stabbing him anyway but Link flung her wrist to the side and used her own momentum against her to shove her off the bed. She tumbled in a mess of shouts to the floor. Frantically he clawed his free hand at his bound hand and tried loosening it, his fingers suddenly numb as they worked at the leather bindings keeping him strapped in place.

Levana rose in an almost unnatural way. She was not there and then suddenly she was, looming up over the bed with the dagger clutched lovingly in her fists. Her pale eyes still looked empty but now their was purpose etched into the lines of her face as she leaped for him. The dagger came down and Link swatted it away again, closing his fist in a blow against her wrists. She yelped and dropped the weapon and Link went back to trying to free himself.

" _Link_!" She growled, skittering across the ground like some deranged insect to collect her blade.

She was hunched there gathering herself up and readying for another attack when Link worked his second hand loose. He sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed to free his feet, but by then Levana was plowing forward again with a howl of madness in her lungs. She dove for him again and Link uncuffed his foot and kicked her back at the last moment. When he unstrapped his last bound limb he stood from the bed untied but also nearly naked and weaponless. Levana knelt nursing her wound and glaring up at him heaving massive breaths and snarling like a beast.

"Why do you betray the Goddesses!?" She bellowed. "Why did you bring their wrath down upon us!?"

As if on cue, the howling winds beyond the walls roared more ferociously and Link swore he felt the entire tower lean briefly on its side like a drunkard. Levana pulled at her hair and squeezed her eyes shut and when she opened them again their was a fire burning within. She grabbed the dagger up and charged him one last time, but by then Link had his wits about him and unbound as he was had no trouble grabbing hold of her, disarming her, and throwing her back to the ground. She landed hard and pounded her fists in frustration against the floor.

"It's over, Levana," he told her, sheathing the dagger in the waistband of his small clothes. "You're defeated. Now stop this madness."

She knelt panting, glaring, hating. Her mouth opened, perhaps to say something or perhaps to shout, but Link never knew. A long curved sword drove through her stomach and dropped her dead in place.

" _No!_ " Link wailed and took a step forward.

Jolene passed from the shadows of the room behind Levana and pulled free the sword she'd used to kill the woman; its blade still slick with blood.

"You!?"

"Me," Jolene answered with a smile. Her eyes moved to Levana and the tip of her boot nudged the woman to test her for life. There was none to be found. "Poor Levana. Mad with power. Another tragic Gerudo tale."

"You killed her… she was defenseless…" Link said.

Jolene grimaced. "Your compassion is sickening."

Just then, another figure emerged from the shadows of the doorway, smaller, with wild orange-red hair.

"Kotake?" Link looked between the two women standing before him, never imagining he'd see them join sides. "What's going on?"

Jolene rolled her eyes and handed the shorter Gerudo the sword. "Here, girl. Guard him well if you don't want me to take his pathetic life. Levana is dead. I have a people to lead now before the war." And just as soon as she'd appeared, Jolene vanished again into the darkness.

Link and Kotake were left alone staring at one another. The young Gerudo's eyes had changed since he'd last seen her, though. She was more determined, focused. And maybe a tad angry as well.

Link moved and Kotake raised the sword. "Don't, Mr. Link."

Link put his hands up in submission. "What's going on, Kotake? What is Jolene doing back here? Why did she just _kill_ Levana in cold blood!?"

"There's a war about to start that's why. Now you just keep that pretty mouth of yours shut and stand still. When the war is over, you're to be mine like I always wanted. …even though I know you chose _her_ …"

"War? What war?"

"I told you not to talk!" Kotake growled. "You break my heart all the time, Mr. Link, and now you have to be quiet!"

"Stop acting like a child and answer me!" Link shouted, finally losing his patience with the girl. " _What_ war, Kotake? Tell me!"

She glared at him with her lips pouted, clearly upset she couldn't command him with her words alone. She shifted her weight impatiently and then blew a long breath of air out and stomped her foot. "Oh, I _hate_ you sometimes, Mr. Link! A war with Hyrule! Jolene stole their precious little princess and now she's led their big scary army back here to have a good old fight, alright? It's our war, our people's, and Jolene says its been coming a long time."

_Princess._ Link stared.

"What are you looking at me like that for? You better not be planning an escape, Mr. Link! I have the sword here! You just… you just behave and obey me like I always wanted!"

When he'd collected his wits again he cleared his throat and spoke. "Where's the princess? Kotake, don't hold back on me now. _Where_ is the princess!? Answer me!"

"No! No, I'm not telling! Somewhere… somewhere safe for now. What do you care? You already have a girl. Aveil. I seen you with her. You two are lovers. Aren't you…" She swallowed and waited patiently for an answer.

"Kotake…" He ran a hand against his brow. "It's time to grow up. I can't play these games with you anymore. I didn't 'choose' anyone. Love is… its just not that simple, alright? You're young and impulsive, and someday you'll know I'm right, but for now? For today? You're just going to have to trust me. Now listen to me. If the princess is here, she's in a great deal of danger and I have to protect her. If there's war coming, you better prepare yourself. I'm walking out that door. Don't stop me."

"No you're not!" Kotake protested, stomping a foot again and waving the sword in the air between them. "You stay _put_ , Mr. Link!"

"I'm going. You can cut me down if that's what you really want… or you can finally let me go and start the long process of growing up. It's your choice."

He took a step and Kotake raised the blade higher but her hands were trembling around the hilt. "Don't you do it! Stop, Mr. Link! Stop right now!"

But he didn't. He walked right past her and out into the hall beyond. Kotake watched him go with her bottom lip quivering and the sword wobbling about in her hands like a flower swaying in a breeze. When he looked back at her, she'd fallen to her knees and was sobbing into her hands.

"I'm sorry it all turned out this way," he told her, turned, and left.

Levana's tower a maze of hallways and staircases. Link fled down them in a rush, his thoughts on the princess one moment, on this 'war' of Jolene's the next. He looked in rooms and down halls and did not see Jolene anywhere. He descended to a lower level where a covered walkway joined the tower with an adjacent building and it was there he stopped. The sides were carved out of the stone to allow two long windows into the desert village beyond and currently they were depositing massive amounts of sand through. The storm outside was climbing a frenzied pace and Link had to shield his eyes just to glimpse the world beyond. It calmed a bit and he was able to look upwards, to a raised platform jutting out from the top of the tower and it was there she stood.

" _Girls!_ " Jolene's shrill voice carried down into the valley of women below. She raised her arms and fanned her fingers as if it were _her_ who'd conjured up the storm that swirled so viciously around her. " _Levana is dead and I have returned to lead you! Girls! Here! Up here! Look upon your leader!"_

One by one the Gerudo filed out of the many buildings and towers and alleyways and shadows and one by one they gathered together at the foot of the tower looking up at the madwoman above cloaked in storm. Chatter and shouts ran through them but what they said Link could not piece together above the winds. Jolene let their numbers swell to capacity before cupping her hands around her mouth and shouting again.

" _Levana is dead! The madwoman is dead! I have returned to lead you! War is at your doorstep, girls! War comes to claim you but I shall protect you!"_

Link could make out the general feeling of anger and shock from the large group of Gerudo below as they shouted and protested and readied their spears and swords. Jolene watched them squabbling with a smile and then cackled wildly into the sky.

" _Fight amongst yourselves if you must! We no longer have a choice to be fractured! War is here, girls! Crown me and bend your knees or perish to the might of Hyrule! The choice is yours!"_

The Gerudo went on shouting themselves into a frenzy but their chatter was cut through sharply with the blaring shrill cry of a warhorn. A silence heavy as iron lay upon them after that horn and when it blew again all eyes moved from Jolene to the eastern stand of dunes beyond the village walls. Link followed their gaze, his heart hammering in his chest, and looked out with them at the sight awaiting.

Full dark had settled over the desert by then, but beneath the moonlight the army was still visible. Dotted along the crest of the dune were torches every few feet and below the red baths they cast were the shine and polish of hammered Hyrulian steel. The soldiers sat mounted upon that hill of sand in their armor and helmets with sword and shield and spear and hammer clutched to their breastplates. There were dozens, more than enough to ride down and sweep the village and slaughter every Gerudo woman where she stood in her silks and sandals. One of their horses whinnied and clopped its hooves impatiently in the sands and the rider raised his torch high and swept a long look over the village through the slitted visor of his helm.

" _There is your war!_ " Jolene's insane screams bore into the night. " _There upon the hill waiting to bring you death! Crown me and we fight, girls! Crown me and we will win!_ "

" _You fool, Jolene!_ " One girl below yelled.

" _You've led them here to slaughter us!_ " Another shouted.

" _We don't stand a chance!"_

_"You've doomed us!_ "

Jolene shook her head. " _Cowards! Whose desert are they in!? Whose home do they tread upon! Crown me, girls! Kneel and I will find a way to victory!"_

Link had heard enough. He sprinted across the walkway and barreled down the stairs in the adjacent building. At the base, he pressed through the doorway and rushed into the main courtyard where the girls were gathered. They turned on his warily at first but when they saw him unarmed they eased and accepted him among them.

"Link," one called out. "There are soldiers here."

"What are we going to do?"

"Jolene has brought us all death."

Link looked up towards the top of the tower, but Jolene appeared to have vanished in the storm and only the sweeping winds of sand remained.

"I have to speak with them," he explained, every Gerudo around him listening patiently with wide eyes and bated breath. "The soldiers… I'll go to them. I'll see if I can… I don't know. Talk them out of this."

The girls crowded around him close and nodded. One by one they reached out and touched his arms. Every hand that laid upon him lay softly and squeezed him for confidence or for hope or for something else but in that moment he reflected on all the time he'd spent with these women. Some where crazy and wicked but most he had no problems with. He didn't want to see them harmed, and in that sea of bronze faces and imploring eyes that stared out at him, he knew they wished the same for him. He felt a kinship form and nodded reverently to the crowd. He was sworn to protect them now, in whatever way he could.

The soldiers lined the dune like steel tree trunks jutting up into the storm. Link went to them in his mostly nakedness and bare feet and stood below them feeling awfully small. From their torchlight he saw eyes peeking out from helms to watch him with measured looks. When he was close enough, he held a hand up to shield his eyes from the harsh winds of the storm and stood in wait. He bowed, showing respect.

"Now what is a boy like you doing out here amongst these women?" A soldier asked. "Speak, boy."

"My name is Link," he explained. "And I was… saved by these women. My horse and I fell in a storm near on a week ago and we were taken in and nursed back to health by the Gerudo."

Silence met his words. The soldier's torches wavered in the wind.

He looked from warrior to warrior. "I understand one of them took Princess Zelda."

"Is she harmed?" A soldier asked.

"No," he lied. He _hoped_ she wasn't, but who truly knew with Jolene. The thought of her being harmed made him sick and weak and he couldn't linger on the notion long. He shook his head. "I know she is safe, but I know not where she is. I can assure you, however, that the Gerudo who took Princess Zelda was acting alone. She wanted her people to clash with your own because she is an evil, twisted mind. The Gerudo in large have nothing to do with this. They're innocent."

"They have our princess," a soldier spoke harshly. He tapped his sword against the plating on his thigh. "We'll cut every one of them down to see her safe."

"I can retrieve her," Link promised the men. "Give me time."

A quiet exchange of words passed between two mounted men in the center of their ranks. When it was done, one of them unsheathed a torch from his horse's saddlebags and cut the wooden post down till it was very short. He dismounted and stuck one end into the sands and used another's soldiers torch to light it. The bulbous head of it went up in a blaze, painting the sand very near its stem in a dome of red. The soldier stared down at Link.

"When that torch burns out, we ride into the village. We'll kill every one of them. Bring us Princess Zelda, boy. Go now, your time is short."

He was racing back down the dune before the last word had left the man's lips.

" _Where's Jolene!?_ " He bellowed breathlessly as he skidded back into the edge of the Gerudo crowd. Their eyes turned to him wide and hopeful. "Jolene! Where is she!? I need to find her! I-"

"Here," a voice interjected.

Link spun around and found the tall lanky woman gliding forth in her booted feet out of the sands like some serpent. She carried with her a long spear clutched between each hand and tilted her head back to stare down her beak of a nose at him. Her eyes narrowed hatefully between him and the crowd.

"This is it then?" She asked with a nod. "You'd all really choose to follow this _man_ instead of taking me back into your ranks as leader?"

The Gerudo's silence was their answer. They stood behind Link. A few reached out and laid palms on his shoulders. One handed over her spear and Link took it gratefully.

"You whores," Jolene hissed. "I hope those soldiers slaughter each and every one of you."

"Where's the princess, Jolene," Link asked.

Jolene smiled. "Dead. I killed her a long time ago. Why?"

"Lies. Even now, at the end, you're still telling lies."

"I should've left you to die that day in the desert," Jolene said with a nod. "That day we came upon you and you lay dying like a dog in the heat. I should've trampled over you with my horse and left your corpse for the buzzards."

"But you didn't." He stepped out of the crowd and held the spear up, ready. "And now here I am."

"Yes," she spat the word with contempt. "There… you… _are!_ "

She leaped for him with her own spear held high and brought it down with all her weight. Link lowered to a knee and locked his elbows as he held his arms up and absorbed the blow mid-shaft of his own weapon. He shoved her back and swatted her with the spear's end but Jolene danced out of the way and launched a counter of flurried blows. Link hopped back on the heels of his feet, Jo's spear tip poking deadly strikes at his belly and just barely missing each time. When she'd ran out of room and hand to switch her footing up, he used the opportunity to launch himself at her. With the spear laid out flat he pressed into her chest and forced her down to the ground. Jolene fell back and winced but got her feet up between them and sent him flying over the top of her head. He kept a tight grip of his spear, landing and spinning and reeling it up just in time to block a fresh attack. Jolene twisted in the winds and let her spear glide out one-handed at length. Link twisted to try and avoid the blow but it struck him hard in the side and he cried out in pain. Jolene pressed on him, dabbing with her spear tip to keep him scrambling backwards atop the stone underfoot till he was pressed against a building. She went for the killing blow and he rolled aside. Her spear splintered and cracked on impact with the stone.

Weaponless, she roared a warcry and tossed the broken halves of her spear aside. Link got himself up and readied, but by then her feet were launching at him in a series of mad kicks from every direction. He blocked one, dodged another, side-stepped a third, and a fourth found his gut. He doubled over and the toes of Jolene's boot snapped his head back when it collided against his jaw. He fell backwards and Jolene came cartwheeling over him, her hands gripping the center of his spear. He held on as she tried prying it from his grip, and briefly they wrestled with the weapon until the heel of Jolene's foot drove into its center and snapped it in halves.

Each of them without a proper weapon then and Jolene flipped herself around Link and latched onto his back like a monkey. Her wiry strong arms squeezed around his throat and cut off his air. He went coughing and flailing backwards with Jolene attached to him till he drove her into the building beside them. She yelped and released her grip and Link scrambled to get on top of her and pin her down. His hands found her wrists and he straddled her waist to control her.

" _Where is the princess!"_ He demanded over the increasing screams of the howling wind. Sand raked into his eyes but he squinted and dealt with the pain. " _Tell me, Jolene!_ "

Jolene squirmed beneath him like the serpent she was but would not speak.

" _You're defeated! Now tell me where she is!"_

Jolene's long legs wound up around his abdomen and pinched tight. Link winced and strained his back as he went stiff to try and counter her powerful thighs. The woman screeched like some banshee and squeezed tighter till he was forced to release his hold on her wrists. She wiggled out from beneath him and Link had just enough time to reach out and grab a foot before she escape in full. Jolene kicked her leg until her boot came dislodged and then skittered off with one bare foot and one clad in a boot. Link clambered to a stand, holding his ribs where she'd squeezed him, but by the time he stood to face her again, she was gone.

" _Where!?_ " He demanded of the Gerudo crowd still watching in the village's center. They pointed down the twisting road that wrapped Levana's tower. Link panted and eyed the eastern horizon where upon that dune of soldiers the nub of torch that was his hourglass had nearly burned away to nothing. The storm was raging in full then and the soldiers could hardly be seen beyond the thin veil of sand and wind that covered them, but Link knew they were there; knew they were waiting impatiently to ride the village down.

He raced down the road clutching his side, shielding his eyes against the storm's wrath as he searched desperately for Jolene. There was nothing and more nothing to be found until there was, a fleeting glimpse of color moving in the sands between two buildings. He rushed for it and nearly collided with the wall he was so blinded by the storm. Down its narrow gap Jolene was fleeing and when he'd chased after her and found its dead end she'd somehow vanished again. He looked every which way and couldn't find even a trace of her. Then his eyes landed on a long crack in the wall and the hollowed-out basin of sand at its foot. He dropped to his hands and knees and sized it up just big enough for a person to crawl under. On his belly he lay and then he went worming and wiggling his way beneath the wall.

On the other side, the world was awash in a mad frenzy. The storm raged unabated by any wall or cover out here, and Link went deaf as well as blind. Barely, he made out the tracks of feet in the sand and followed them up to the crest of a long dune. At its apex he spotted a dark smudge in the endless sea of brown ahead and rushed for it. When he neared he saw it was a tent and he pulled aside the flaps and drove himself inside.

" _Princess!?_ " He shouted, but the only thing waiting for him inside was Aveil, laying on the ground bound hand and foot, and her bare midriff marked with the long red scar of a blade. " _No!_ " Link shouted and collapsed to his knees beside her to cradle her head.

"…Link?" She croaked, her eyes barely open as she gazed upon him. "Is that you?"

"You're hurt…" He said, brushing her hair back.

"Just a little… Jolene… she stabbed me and took the… took your princess…"

Link eyed the woman's wound again. It looked bad at first glimpse but it was far enough to Aveil's side that it was possible there wasn't much damage done. "I have to get you back," he said, untying her.

"No, Link… you have to… save your love."

He stared into her eyes.

Aveil smiled weakly. With her hands free she reached up to touch his cheek. "I met her. She's… lovely. I understand now why you resist us. Why you… why you have since the beginning… you deserve her, Link… as she does you…"

"I'm coming back for you," Link promised when he'd finished untying her ankles. "Do you hear me, Aveil? Stay here and I'll come back."

"My hero," she whispered and kissed him and then lay down.

Link shoved the tent flaps aside and thrust himself back into the heart of the storm. The winds raked his eyes and his ears and stole his senses away from him immediately. He cupped a hand over his eyes and squinted at the sand underfoot. He searched for tracks and found only the ones he'd made himself. He grit his teeth and moved around the side of the tent and to its back where there lay fresh tracks trailing off into the desert. Link followed.

Blind he pushed on, the storm howling in his ears and beating upon his bare flesh with a relentless barrage of sand. He trudged forth, fighting every inch of the way the world's desire to lay him down and swallow him up whole. " _Jolene!_ " He roared into the blank slate of brown nothing encasing him. " _Jolene!_ " Every foot he laid forward he felt the sands sucking at his ankles, trying to draw him in. Every time the wind streaked, he felt the torment of the night bleeding against him. Every breath he took felt as if it might be his last.

Then she struck.

Out of the nothing she came with teeth barred and eyes narrowed and face drawn up in some ghastly painting of a horror's nightmare. A blade in her hand, clutched tight inside white knuckles. It sliced across his belly. Link cried out and by the time he turned to follow her path she'd vanished back into the storm. He stood panting, clutching his wound, feeling the hot blood on his fingertips. His eyes moved frantically through the storm to find her but could not. She came again, from his left side now, and the blade kissed his shoulder this time. He shouted and fell to a knee and she was gone again. Weakly his hand moved to the waistband of his small clothes and fished out the dagger there; the same one Levana had made an attempt on his life with not long ago. He brought it up to defend himself and Jolene emerged from behind him, dragging her blade across his back in a long, agonizing, line. Link shouted his pain and fell to the sands laying flat. Everywhere he'd been cut bled and screamed at the same time and he could only lie still and let it. She would come for the kill soon. He knew that much. In his hand he clutched Levana's dagger and held its point at the ready.

Jolene leaped from the cloak of the storm. She flew suspended in air above him with her long face contorted with hatred. Down she came with her blade in both hands and landed upon him.

They lay face to face in the heart of the storm, like lovers, with their eyes locked upon each other. Jolene's mouth moved soundlessly and then pain racked her expression. Together they looked down to where Jolene had impaled herself on Levana's dagger. It was buried to the hilt inside her stomach. She croaked and winced and looked back into Link's eyes. Then she let out a long breath and fell atop him, her cheek pressed to his. She made a sound, tensed, and went completely limp.

Link lay panting beneath her dead weight. He used every last bit of his strength to shove her off of him then crawled bleeding to his hands and knees. He faced the storm and scanned its emptiness. The princess was nowhere to be seen and his wounds had left him tired… so tired…

He crawled forward and winced with every inch. He ran his hand over his shoulder and it came away smeared with blood. His breathing hurt. He had to close his eyes a moment to get his strength together. Just a moment…

He fell down.

* * *

The soldiers watched as the last bit of torch stuck in the ground withered to black. When it had they faced one another and their commander offered a nod of assurance. He rode out from their rank and file and raised his sword. Down the line he rode, banging his blade against his shield in a drum of war. At the end of the sloping dune below, the Gerudo women stood uncertainly at the gates of their village, slowly bringing up their spears with little choice left before them. The knights of Hyrule began a long and loud shout and just as they were ready to ride down upon the women, one began yelling at them and pointing. Their commander extended a hand to hold their assault and turned his attention North. There emerging from the veil of sand that was the storm came the boy, and cradled in the boy's hands was their Princess Zelda.

The soldiers turned their mounts northward and rode out to intercept them.

* * *

He slept a long time. It was a dreamless sleep, and when it ended Link sat up in bed gasping for breath. " _Zelda_ ," he uttered, eyes wide and fixed on nothing in particular.

Aveil, who'd been napping beside his bed, sat up herself and put a hand over his to calm him. "It's alright. Link, its alright. Shhh."

He stared at her with his mouth agape and slowly pieced together where he was and why. He looked down and found fresh bandages over his stomach and shoulder.

"Is she alright?"

Aveil smiled. "Your princess is fine. The knights took her home."

"Home…"

"Back to Hyrule." Aveil took a long breath and caressed his hand. "Back to where she belongs… and you too, I suppose."

Link sat breathing hard, his mind replaying the events of what had happened. "Jolene?"

Aveil nodded to the room's sole window. Outside, in the fresh light of dawn, there was a pyre burning in the village square with a group of women gathered around it watching.

"Jolene is vanquished at last. Good riddance, I say."

Link breathed easier then. "The soldiers…? They simply left?"

"Well you delivered their princess, didn't you? They took her and handed you over to us and departed. They held true to their word same as you." Aveil leaned close and hugged him tenderly so as not to upset his wounds. "You saved us, Link. Truly. The Gerudo are forever in your debt." She released him and watched his eyes with a fading smile. "…but I can see it isn't our gratitude you're thinking about. I figured as much." She sighed. "Your horse is saddled and ready. I arranged your things while you slept."

He looked at her, took her in his arms, and hugged her.

Outside in the morning light, most of the women were still sleeping. The few that were up and about or tending to Jolene's pyre came to him and offered him their thanks. Aveil stayed at his side as they said their goodbyes and then walked him to the stables where Epona was waiting patiently with his sword and shield stashed away in her saddlebags. Link looked upon them wistfully and ran his hand through Epona's mane.

"I'll miss her," Aveil said, stroking the horse herself.

Link looked at her. "You can come with me, you know."

"Thank you, Link, but I doubt Hyrule will be very accepting of my people now that one of us kidnapped and nearly killed your princess."

"They will be. I'll make sure of it. This can be the start of a new day for the Gerudo. No longer outcasts. I promise you I'll try."

"And I believe you." She stood tip-toed and kissed his cheek. "You are a good man, Link of Hyrule. Too good for this desert." She held his hands and her eyes rimmed with tears until she swiped them away. "Will you come back and see us?"

"Of course."

"Bring your girl. I'd like to talk with her more. We got along quite well in the brief time we spent."

Link smiled. "Alright, Aveil."

They hugged again and when Link released her, Aveil was wiping her eyes against her arm once more.

He mounted Epona and spurred her gently out of the stables and into the village. Aveil walked beside him to the gates and there he turned and took in the sight of the women once more. Those whom were still around waved to him and shouted their goodbyes.

"Mr. Link!" A voice cut through the crowd and then Kotake was running up to him waving her hands wildly to catch his attention. "Mr. Link, wait!"

"Oh, boy," Aveil said with a shake of her head.

Kotake rushed to their side and stood catching her breath a moment. "You were trying to leave without saying goodbye?"

"Of course not," Link assured her. "I was waiting for you."

Kotake frowned. "Liar. It's alright. I've decided to take your advice, Mr. Link. I'm growing up now. No more silly little girl for me. Only a mature woman now. Isn't that something?"

"It's… certainly something," Aveil said, prompting her kin to elbow her and pout.

"Anyway, I got you a gift. While Aveil and I were… making amends, she told me about your princess. I guess that's who you really want, huh? It's okay. I understand. Like a mature woman would, you know? But, um, so Aveil told me the princess mentioned something in their conversation and I thought maybe you'd want one to take back to her and win her heart like a prince in some old story or whatever, so… here."

The girl extended her hand and Link bent to receive her gift. It was a soft, long-stemmed, white as snow flower; the rare and delicate desert rose. Link lifted it gently to his nose and breathed deep of its sweet scent.

"Kotake…" he whispered, holding the girl's eyes. "I… thank you."

"Well don't, like, make a big deal out of it, Mr. Link…" She said, lowering her eyes and flushing as she shuffled her feet. "Go give it to the girl whose heart you want to win. That's what they're good for and all…"

He tucked the flower stem behind his ear and nodded. "This means more to me than you'll ever know, Kotake. I'll try and bring you something just as good when I return."

Her face lit up. "You… you're coming back!?"

"Sooner or later I'm sure."

She clapped and hugged his leg and patted Epona and cheered. Aveil had to take the young girl in her arms to get her under control. Link laughed at the sight of them wrestling one another, shook his head, and turned Epona around to face the gate.

"Don't be too long, Link of Hyrule," Aveil said. "Its lonely out here in the desert."

He nodded. His heels found Epona's side and they trotted out under the gate and into the desert. He glanced back and found both Kotake and Aveil watching with tears in their eyes and had to turn away before he got too emotional himself. Epona made her way slowly up the eastern stand of dunes and then galloped over their crest.

The sun had become his guide back. It sat high overhead, a brazen, burning, beacon of gold in the morning sky. It cooked the earth and baked the sands and slowly but surely filled him with hope and high spirits. Wherever he looked, whatever direction, he could see that pale blue sprawl of freedom that was the sky eternal, and now his fate was to ride out into it; to ride home to his waiting princess. He lifted a hand and traced his fingers along the stem of the desert rose perched behind his ear and smiled. She was going to love it.

He spurred Epona to a gallop, and together they rode for the eastern horizon, heading home at last after their long, strange adventure had finally come to its finish.

* * *

_The End_


End file.
